The year is almost behind us. The company, Supply Chain Insights, is now in full gear. We are a small, focused team that’s serious about supply chain research.
As we regroup and reflect on 2012, I give thanks to the 35 customers that have supported our startup efforts over the last year. I remain firmly committed to the Open Content research model and love seeing the readership and the overwhelming response to what we are writing and sharing on SlideShare.
I believe that there are far too many firms in the market that have research in their name, but not in their business model. At Supply Chain Insights, research is the core of what we do. We are committed to giving supply chain leaders unique insights based on the work that we are doing with quantitative data, qualitative interviews and mining the data of 20 years of supply chain ratios. It is not easy. And, it is not as profitable as a consulting model, but we are having fun. We firmly believe that there is a niche to fill for a research company that is serious about research and serves the line-of-business leader. We want to be the firm that people trust and turn to.
Last year was our startup year. Starting a company is a wild ride. Risky is an understatement. However, with 2012 completed, I am thankful that we met our revenue targets, published 19 reports and launched the Community. This year, we will revamp the community in February. We will make it easier to use and more fun. We will also publish three reports a month, continue our monthly newsletters and enhance our free montly webcast series.
It will also be a year of firsts. We are also planning to publish a series of ebooks that are a recap of the work that we are doing on the Supply Chain Index. This work will be unveiled at the first Global Summit that we are hosting on September 10th-12th ,2013 at the Phoenician in Scottsdale, AZ.
Why eBooks? The book Bricks Matter published this week. It was exciting to hold it in my hand, and I plan to write another hardcopy book for sale. However, as an iterim move, we will be publishing eBooks on research. They will be a collection of what we feel are our best research reports on a topic. We feel that by stringing the reports together that we can better help teams connect the dots. These will also be free and the books will be updated yearly with new annual reports. We will then take the best of the best and turn it into another hardcopy book that we will publish in two years.
Why a conference? This has been a tough decision. I have been on the fence for a while about hosting a Supply Chain Insights conference. Many would say that the LAST THING the industry needs is another conference. In many ways, I agree. There are SO MANY bad conferences with weak content, that I leave many with a feeling of emptiness. I resent the UK firms that have tried to cash in on the supply chain market with a series of poorly run conferences; and, I also hate a conference that is filled with vendor booths and salesmen that chase me down the aisle. So, I feel that I have no choice. To serve the audience that I love, I think that there is a need for Supply Chain Insights to host a conference.
This conference is designed as a Global Summit. It is geared for the supply chain leader. It will be in Scottsdale, AZ at the Phoenician on September 10th-12th,2013. The program will be designed with deep content for the supply chain executive and will include focused networking activities. The conference is by invitation only. Everyone that attends will be paying their own way. There will be no sponsorships and no vendor booths and pavilions. It will be limited attendance for the technology providers. I will limit the attendance to 35% technology providers with a focus on thought leaders. We hope that you will join us.
So, what is my New Year’s resolution for 2013? Smile more and enjoy the journey. We are having fun. We hope that you are too! Drop us a line and let us know what you think from time to time!