The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

By Cyrus Hadavi

This is my favorite time of year.  Not just because it’s the Holiday Season, although, the festive spirit is certainly welcome here in LA, particularly during lane changes on our overcrowded freeways.  For me, the weeks before Christmas are cherished because they closely follow our annual customer summit events in North America and Asia.  It’s a time to reflect on the success that we’ve helped our customers achieve, and on how we can help them continue to gain market-share and profitability in the New Year.      

Adexa’s 2004 summit events were held in Newport Beach CA. and Shanghai, China.  We had customer speakers from many different industries—from process to discrete and from silicon chip to potato chip—and despite their diversity in products and markets; they had at least one thing in common—Adexa was a partner in their success.  For example, one customer said it had increased its share of the LCD panel market by 3% through better on-time delivery performance while reducing days of supply by 50% and finished goods inventory by over 33%. Another company, one of the largest manufacturers of memory products, showed that they have improved productivity by 30%.  A top manufacturer of printer products talked about how they reduced their inventory by 27% in less than one year using Adexa solutions, while another reported a 30% reduction of inventory.  One large global electronics manufacturer showed how they are using Adexa's demand planner with over 2000 users around the world, and soon, they’ll increase that to 6000 users.  Another customer indicated that they just beat their competition in productivity and inventory turns using Adexa's Sales Inventory and Operations Planning (SIOP) solution, and their competition is wondering how they became so unbeatable in their industry.

On another front, Adexa introduced its unique capability to offer the "Missing link" between financial planning and operational planning.  We call it COP, for Collaborative Operations Planning.  This solution enables company executives to evaluate the financial consequences of their operational decisions, and project this to their company's earnings for future quarters. This is of tremendous value for maximizing profits by making and calibrating decisions for financial benefit and KNOWING what the outcome will be.  In addition, under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, executives can use this feature to assess the risks that the company is exposed to and proactively inform their investors of the potential outcome as they work to improve the situation.  They can identify financial risks associated with contracts with larger suppliers and their abilities to deliver, potential inventory overages or shortages, transportation delays and potential forecasting errors…even changes in weather conditions which can influence demand patterns in industries such as apparel and seasonal foods.  COP is intended to be an indispensable strategic tool for business planning and analysis…the type of solution that makes you wonder how you ever got along without it.

Our summit events were not exclusively focused on the strategic value of Adexa solutions.  We also offered training and mentoring on any and all technical issues, and we rolled-out a new GUI and service oriented architecture that received rave reviews from customers. In fact, we have had overwhelming demand from a number of clients for taking the next step to implement our new J2EE GUI layer and ReportWriter.  They make the solutions more intuitive for role-specific users, thereby increasing usage and returns.  If you would like to hear more about our solutions just visit www.adexa.com or send an email to info@adexa.com. 

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of the clients who provided us with great feedback and joined us for two days of sharing, learning and fun.  Thank you for being there for us.  Thank you for your wonderful support, and, as always, we will continue to expand our services and make sure that there is value for you in everything that we do.

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