Session Descriptions

Supply Chain Management: Information Sharing, Coordination, and Contracting (Beer Game)
This session begins with a two-hour interactive Beer Game that illustrates inefficiencies arising in supply chains due to lack of information sharing and decentralized decision making. The de-brief of the game involves case discussion exemplifying information sharing and delegation of decision-making in supply chains.
Speaker: Kathy Pearson

Scenario Planning
In an environment of increasing technological and global instability, the risks of ignoring uncertainty are greater than ever—but so are the rewards of actively addressing it. Traditionally, managers have viewed uncertainty as an obstacle interfering with the company’s existing plans rather than as the unknown that can create opportunity. This session focuses on how to develop and test an organization’s strategic direction in the face of uncertainty and complexity. It introduces a conceptual framework and methodology to ensure innovative as well as disciplined strategic thinking in volatile and complex environments. Linking strategic vision to core capabilities, it presents the various steps of scenario-based strategic planning, and in a workshop format applies them to the participants’ organizations. The learning objectives of the session include regarding uncertainty as an opportunity, recognizing the pitfalls associated with planning for a single future, and finding a systematic approach to handle uncertainty. Participants will also learn how scenario planning relates to more traditional planning and budgeting processes.
Speaker: Kathy Pearson

Coping with Competition: Anticipating, Pre-empting, and Reacting to Competitors' Actions
This session focuses on the competitive elements that should be taken into consideration when making resource allocation and product positioning decisions. Through an interactive case, participants consider different competitive response profiles and attempt to resolve the “prisoners’ dilemma” aspects of competitive decision making.
Speaker: Peter Fader

Performance-Based Logistics
Manufacturers and service providers need to develop supply chain relationships with suppliers and customers that provide superior, cost-effective support. A major focus of these efforts concerns Performance-Based Logistics (PBL), which aligns incentives in the service supply chain by tying a supplier’s compensation to the product output value generated by the customer. This session discussions how advanced multi-echelon inventory algorithms combined with a new principal-agent economic model and a state-of-the-art software system have led to successful implementations in environments like Cisco, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, KLA-Tencor, and the U.S. Navy.
Speaker: Morris Cohen

Channel Conflict
This session explores the reasons behind conflicts in distribution channels, specifically between manufacturers and retailers. A central concept in this session is that differing goals within a distribution chain lead to sub-optimal decisions at the macro level. Incompatible pricing decisions by manufacturers, distributors, and retailers are one example of potential conflict between channel members. The concepts discussed in this session are based on economic theory. Participants will understand the different approaches toward resolution, including incentive programs and structural methods.
Speaker: John Zhang

New Perspectives on Measuring and Achieving Profitability
The session makes the point that what you measure is what you see and what you see is what you manage. It turns out that people tend to have this tunnel vision conditioned by accounting profitability such that they see the business world in a narrow, inflexible, and not so insightful way. This session will show that there are many ways to measure a firm’s profitability (no, we are not cooking up numbers here) that would lead a firm to see new business opportunities and new ways to manage an old business.
Speaker: John Zhang