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By David Novak, Executive Vice President of Business Development, SPS Commerce

Consumer packaged goods (CPG) suppliers that continue to survive and thrive during these tough economic times will be those that achieve the highest levels of visibility into their supply chains. Some retailers do a decent job of collaborating with their suppliers sharing information that is essential to supply chain efficiency, such as product availability, sales velocity, fill rates, on-time deliveries, etc. For far too long, however, many suppliers have been left to operate in the dark, and struggle to produce accurate demand-forecasts which, for many, is the central nervous system of the company. The critical data they need -- informing them about customer interests, retailer sales statistics, product return rates (and reasons), etc. – is often hidden in disparate systems or simply not made available. As a result, suppliers continue to grapple with a number of questions: How well are our products being received by consumers? How quickly are products selling at each retail location? Are there opportunities to increase production and sell-through rates? Am I in danger of stock-out conditions at the storefront, or equally as dangerous, surplus conditions?

© SPS Commerce 2009