The Enterprise and the Network: DemandTec

I had an interesting conversation with DemandTec a few weeks ago about how they have constructed a network to help retail and manufacturing companies collaborate by using merchandising and marketing optimization tools.  This is useful because for a very long time these kinds of companies have used very different tools that led to different results and directions.

When DemandTec first came to us a decade ago they presented primarily about how to optimize profits choosing prices.   It immediately came to mind that this was not the responsibility of the manufacturer and was not of imminent interest.  It was, of course, of interest to share goals between us and our many internal and external partners.

So how do you do that?   We had shortly before talked to IBM about how they were using social networking tools to efficiently connect their large work force, both internally and externally.    We agreed based on our own analyses.

DemandTec believes it is about understanding who the people involved in decisions are (Profiles). Establishing cooperative groups to solve problems both immediate and ongoing (Community),  Being able to quickly share information and specific solutions (Sharing), and tracking activity to determine its relevance to your responsibilities (Following).

Very similar to the approaches we eventually outlined internally.    In addition, with the approaching baby boomer loss of   knowledge,  it was important to build ways for expertise to be gathered, archived and easily applied.   There we applied a number or methods, like blogs and wikis.

It also makes great sense to think of such collaboration in terms of process.    Processes are developed to improve results based on fine tuning the natural complexity of corporate tasks.   There are many processes and many interacting tasks.  These tasks concern both the enterprise and its partners.  To make that work we need to make the needed collaborative interaction work as efficiently as possible.

People processes are naturally inefficient and tailoring a social network to match your own business needs makes sense.   Digital tools help, but the culture of a company must also be enrolled.

Implementing a social network in terms of Profiles, Community, Sharing and Following is a great place to start.  Making sure to adequately include enterprise and partners.  Analytics, optimization and improvement are also about process, so linking them to social needs and interaction is an efficient response to complexity.  It also creates an open source framework that brings the needed people to the task.

So I applaud the DemandTec direction.  Makes sense. I will continue to track its use and progress here.

Here is more about their optimization network and their social networking approach.  A good case study for addressing both the complexity of analytics and getting people to use these methods collaboratively


They write about their method, note this includes the involvement of some 14,000  participants:

" ... The common denominator between retailers and manufacturers is the shopper. DemandTec quantifies shopper behavior and revolutionizes decision-making with merchandising and marketing optimization tools for retailers and manufacturers. But, often these decisions are not made in a silo. Retailers and manufacturers are inherently connected in how they do business. But collaboration based on analytics has been largely constrained by one problem: retailers used one set of tools and manufacturers used another. Debates over whose spreadsheet was better ensued rather than productive business planning.


DemandTec is the solution. DemandTec is an online network of shared software services and analytics that finally enables real, fact-based, analytics-driven collaboration. All DemandTec customers and software services are part of the network and control how they collaborate with others on the network. Users work in communities and can collaborate with other users in the communities. Some communities are purely for internal collaboration within one company and others connect trading partners for collaborative business planning.... "