As we exit another wild, unpredictable year filled with economic, political and environmental upheaval—resulting in changes wrought of inspiration, desperation and perspiration, a virtual salute.

Indeed, as a global community there is much to be lauded, much to be learned and much to be leery from 2011. Cultural revolutions from the Middle East to Wall Street to Main Street; regional economic fissures, that have produced a global network of fiscal fault lines; and a heaping helping of Mother Nature’s wrath have both threatened and united us. It is the same in our industry, where finance, sales and operations teams are increasingly aligning to better recognize, respond and recalibrate to these same global dynamics. We are all learning the lessons of better alignment and agility in our ability to thrive.

Like it or not, VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity), is our “new normal.” Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the author of one of my favorite books, The Black Swan, explores the idea that an event—positive or negative—that is deemed improbable, like the appearance of a Black Swan, can cause massive consequences.

I am inspired by what I’ve seen in 2011 from our customers, from our peers and from our Steelwedge team in approaching and resolving their own Black Swans. I’ve seen 100-year-old businesses face recession-driven loss in demand, and realign to come out tighter, stronger and better; I’ve seen consumer electronics powerhouses stare down the reality of ever-shortening product lifecycles with laser-focus on smart new product development; I’ve seen a Phoenix rise from the ashes of the automotive industry through powerful focus and improved management; I’ve seen manufacturers rebound after losing a supplier of 90% of a core part in the devastating tsunami; and I’ve seen hard choices made clearer, and sooner with better empirical…

Much ado has been made of the recent moves by ERP vendors Oracle and SAP to acquire their way into the SaaS space.  It is indeed high time that the big ERP players  embrace cloud computing.  Certainly, the value of cloud-based Software-as-a-Service has not been lost on next generation software and solutions players—nor, more importantly—on its users at global businesses of all sizes.

Further,  businesses haven’t limited their SaaS investments just to sales and human capital management like the recent acquisition examples of RightNow  and SuccessFactors.

Ironically, in the supply chain arena, for at least the last five years, it has been the new breed of SaaS player that has actually added more value to the very on-premise systems where Oracle and SAP dominate.

Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) which informs better supply chain agility, is all about bringing together the planning process across demand and supply organizations for a single view of the truth to make better business decisions.  While the process of S&OP has been in place for a few decades, it hasn’t been until the last few years that technology—especially easy to access, implement and configure SaaS-based technology—has enabled companies to unite the disparate ERP, CRM, SCM, BI and Finance systems data to achieve their S&OP priorities. Indeed some of the world’s largest, most complex manufacturers are trusting cloud-based S&OP solutions to help them harmonize their ERP and other rigid, on premise systems and, in turn, become more agile organizations, able to cope with today’s volatile business environment.

Since cloud computing solutions have been delivering better business leverage from ERP systems, it is time that ERP vendors give cloud computing the credit it deserves and has rightly earned.

We recently surveyed our customers to ask how they prefer to stay on top of S&OP advances and emerging best practices.  While it’s no surprise that searching the web and reading reports remain popular activities, an overwhelming majority rate industry conferences and dialogue with fellow practitioners and vendors as a “very useful” source of information.  Great content is essential but conversation remains king, particularly in a field that’s evolving as quickly as S&OP.

To that end, we’re excited that Emerson Therm O-Disc, a long-time beneficiary of the Steelwedge S&OP solution will be speaking on the topic of planning best practices.  The presentation is part of The Supply Chain Forecasting & Planning Conference (Europe), organized by the Institute of Business Forecasting and Planning and taking place on November 17 -18 in Amsterdam. The event brings together executives from leading high-tech, manufacturing and consumer products firms to discuss the fact that S&OP has risen in importance and is now a proven way to meet demand while optimizing supply chain costs.

Of course, we all know that great conversation requires that we leap outside of our comfort zone.  So, as seasoned S&OP conference goers, we’d like to share a few pointers on how to not miss out on the expertise that might be standing behind you in line at the buffet:

* Start your morning at the coffee urn. Meet people. Coffee is a sacred rite for most conference-goers – particularly when the festivities start at 7:30 AM. Be especially nice to our friends from other time zones. They’ll be the ones drinking directly from the spigot.

* Spare yourself a visit to the optometrist. Sit upfront. The fact remains that 12 point font still finds its way onto too many PowerPoint slides. We salute the truly studious who make it…

In continuation of our series of introductions of our new management hires, this week we spoke with Senior Vice President of Global Services, Lisa Betlem, to help you get to know her better.

Lisa has over twenty years of executive experience scaling services organizations for supply chain software companies.  Previously, Lisa ran the global services organization for ModelN, Navis, Savi, and Extricity.  Lisa has also worked as a Senior Production & Materials Planner and as a Senior Manufacturing Engineer at Harris RF Communications where she helped drive their Sale and Operations Planning process. Lisa holds an MBA in Supply Chain Management from the Rochester Institute of Technology (where she completed her Master’s Thesis on “Demand Planning”) and a Bachelor’s Degree in Manufacturing Engineering.  She and her husband reside in the hills above Silicon Valley where she serves as a volunteer Firefighter and Emergency Medic.

Q. Why did you choose to join Steelwedge?

Lisa: Supply chain, S&OP and IBP run through my blood and have been in my DNA for 30 years.  Both my Bachelors degree (Industrial/Manufacturing Engineering with minor in Operations Research) and Masters thesis were all around Demand Planning and Demand and Supply matching.  The first 10 years of my career were in manufacturing playing all types of roles that are significantly impacted by how well a company understands and executes integrated business planning.  I have personally experienced poor planning as both a vendor and supplier and wanted to join Steelwedge, the leader in the market, in order to help solve this critical global issue.

Q.  What business problems are customers solving everyday with the help of Steelwedge’s process consulting and technology?

Lisa: Our services and products are helping customers on many fronts.  We offer business process definition and IBP roadmap planning sessions for newcomers to S&OP to…