We are amidst of this process, guiding our clients to social supply chain transformation with the ultimate goal of an organic, open and holistic consumer driven platform business. We encounter daily the challenges triggered by social media and the openess of the -digitized- world in general. Traditional approaches and processes to supply chain management are not fast enough, flexible enough or robust enough to cope with these changes. People plug these gaps.

1. C2B2C:
The Need for the Social Supply Chain
By Gianluigi Cuccureddu
May 30th, 2011
Discuss and feedback this article on the 90:10 Group blog
Managing Partner of 90:10 Group Netherlands
CMO Agora Media Innovation
Connect through LinkedIn
http://www.linkedin.com/in/gianluigicuccureddu
Tel: +31 (0)6 41362612

2. C2B2C: The Need for the Social Supply Chain
Getting value from social media applications will, in Lora Cecere’s opinion, require a
complete redesign of the contemporary supply chain. “We have to design supply chains
from the outside in,” she declared. In order to achieve a real C2B2C (Outside-in & Inside
Out) organisation, supply chains need to be restructured. Uptil now organisations have been
focused on reponse and internal -efficiënt- processes instead of of the consumer and
listening/sensing what their needs are as a starting point.
Real-time information flows are both a blessing and a curse, it offers both opportunities and
challenges. The following three paragraphs from the article hit the nail:
[...] Now, let’s think of what would have happened if the problem with the product would have been
the result of a design flaw. The information could have gotten to Newell Rubbermaid’s engineering
department in time to develop a fix before product sales starting dropping.
That would be the result of a social supply chain. To create a supply chain like that, Cecere suggests
talking to your marketing department or your social media managers to find out exactly what type of
information is flowing through your social media channels, and then asking how that information can
be used in various parts of the supply chain.
Once that’s accomplished, it’s time to find the right tools — those social business applications — to
support moving information to the right places and the right people in the supply chain.
An organisation overhaul is needed to achieve the abovementioned example on a
continuous pace, with a minimum of efficiency that proves to be viable to business processes
and ROI. Change management needs to occur to transform the current mindset of most
professionals and adopt the consumer-centric vision. Cecere predicts a 5 to 10 years before
the social supply chain is really in place, due to the relative immaturity of the current crop of
social business applications. This might be true but it’s a chicken-egg dilemma, without
testing (and failing), technologies cannot advance to serve the needs of (supply chain)
professionals.In terms of Gartner’s Hype Cycle, social business applications will survive but
will have to go through the neccesary phases before achieving adopting, adaption and
visible return and place in business. Social business applications will follow the
transformation to a social business, in that mean-time inefficiency can occur, but that might
be the already a current challenge in organisations.
By the customers, for the customers
A C2B2C organisation is a platform organisation enabling and offering solutions for
someone’s needs and goals. Before achieving such an organisational state gradual changes
has to be applied, transforming policies, stakeholders, technologies, processes,
infrastructures and what more. We are amidst of this process, guiding our clients to social
supply chain transformation with the ultimate goal of an organic, open and holistic
consumer driven platform business. We encounter daily the challenges triggered by social
media and the openess of the -digitized- world in general. Traditional approaches and
processes to supply chain management are not fast enough, flexible enough or robust
enough to cope with these changes. People plug these gaps.