Throughout most of 2009, supply chain executives found themselves entangled in a classic catch-22 situation. On one hand, as the global recession deepened, stifling orders and bloating inventory-related costs, it became painfully clear that many manufacturers needed to improve their ability to sense and respond to rapid changes in demand and supply chain risk.
On the other hand, with credit markets frozen, manufacturers in 2009 decided they simply couldn’t invest significant sums to reengineer their supply chain processes and roll out major new supply chain software platforms.
“The three top supply chain priorities for manufacturers in 2009 were cost containment, cost containment, and cost containment,” says Kelly Thomas, senior vice president for product strategy and planning at i2 Technologies.
This was a year of deferred projects and incremental investments in supply chain technologies for manufacturers and sinking license revenues for most supply chain software vendors.