External articles

Supplier Carbon Management
11 February 2010 — Procurement Leaders
Having worked closely with the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) on a detailed study, A.T. Kearney offers several pointers on how to drive carbon reduction through supplier relations — from better training to supplier dumping and improved metrics.
By Stephen Easton and Daniel Mahler
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Planning for Success in 2010
January/February 2010 — Supply Chain Management Review
By following a few key planning steps, you can develop supply management strategies that will truly jump start the New Year.
By Carrie Ericson, Simon Rycraft, Kunal Mehta, and James Rooke
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iCPO, We’ve Got an App for That!
January/February 2010 — Supply Chain Management Review
A future where most of your coworkers reside not in the next cubicle over, but across the corporate campus, in another city, state or even the other side of the globe. Far from being the exception, this is the new normal.
By Carrie Ericson, Hugo Evans and Joe Raudabaugh
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Crystal Ball 2.0: Crazy Ideas for 2010
14 December 2009 — Telephony Online
Alex Liu, A.T. Kearney partner and lead for Americas Communications & High Tech, reviews the results of his 2009 predictions and makes a few new ones for 2010, commenting that "The future is getting less cloudy."
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Brazil — A Country of Regeneration
September 2009 — Inside Supply Management
Brazil is positioning itself as a near-shore alternative for organizations that are re-evaluating global sourcing strategies.
By Ricardo Ruiz-Huidobro and Markus Stricker
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Time to Renegotiate Those 'Mega' IT Deals?
July/August 2009 — Financial Executive
As the global economy slows down and financial executives move to trim costs and improve efficiency, the IT mega deal is ripe for renegotiation.
By Bob Haas, Jonathan Zanger and Juan Llanos
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The Real Storm Is Yet to Come, Can Wireless Turn the Tide?
11 May 2009 — Telephony Online
Bad news and good news -- scenario planning will help wireless carriers get ready to take more bold action so they are prepared for the real storm that is approaching.
By Bernhard Kickenweiz
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Some Thoughts about how to Survive the Retail Crisis
12 January 2009 — Mass Market Retailers
Retailers who successfully act on basic tenets will improve their survival chances, strengthen their companies, and position them to take full advantage of the cyclical upturn when it returns.
By Esteban Bowles, Sanjay Srikanth and Anthony Romano (recent EVP and chief supply chain officer at Ann Taylor Stores Corp.)
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Making a key decision in a downturn: Go on the offensive or be defensive?
January/February 2009 — Ivey Business Journal
In an economic downturn, decision-making is distilled in to a clear-cut choice: Do you go on the offensive, aggressively pursuing growth, or do you become defensive, protecting your revenues and profit margins?
By Graeme K. Deans, Chaitan Kansal and Steve Mehltretter
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Cost and Sustainability: The Dual Challenge for Retailers
22 September 2008 — Mass Market Retailers
There is a near perfect storm facing retailers,including those that traditionally thrive in tough economic times: an economy increasingly battered by rising global commodity costs, a severe housing crisis and high gasoline prices.
By Dean Hillier and Raju Karki
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Emerging Markets Full of Promise
11 August 2008 — Mass Market Retailers
Michael Moriarty, A.T. Kearney Lead for Americas Consumer & Retail, discusses the impact of the current credit economy on global retailers.
By Michael Moriarty
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Podcasting: A New Way to Create, Capture and Disseminate Intellectual Capital
August 2008 — Information Outlook
In today's Web 2.0 world, leading-edge organizations need to harness the many different ways of capturing knowledge.
By Helen Clegg and Susan Montgomery
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More Passengers and Reduced Costs—The Optimization of the Berlin Public Transport Network
Fall 2008 — The Journal of Public Transportation
The Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG) has succeeded in increasing its revenue by more than 22 percent in three years. This increase was made possible by restructuring the transportation network as part of an integrated marketing strategy.
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Pruning 'Bad' Complexity
July/August 2008 — BAI Online
Customized products can help or hinder financial institutions depending on how they manage the attendant complexity.
By Joe Reifel, Christian Hagen and Eric Stettler
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How to Define and Maximise Intangible Benefits from Hosting Sporting Events
3 June 2008 — SportAccord
Every event host is keen to ensure a successful legacy, but how can benefits that are defined by being "invisible" have a value?
By Emmanuel Hembert, Don Schumacher (National Assoc. of Sports Commisions), Candace Stasynec (City of Edmonton), Ilias Tatsiopoulos (National Technical Univ. of Athens) and Dr. Claude Stricker (AISTS)
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Get Control of Your Inventory
April 2008 — Supply & Demand Chain Executive
To a chief financial officer, inventory is often a line item on the balance sheet that measures inventory turns against the income statement. This COGS analysis provides an overall view of how much inventory is held across the company's supply chain. What it doesn't provide are the reasons why the inventory is there in the first place.
By Sumit Chandra, Mirko Martich, Shalin Shah and Kumar Venkataraman
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How to achieve maximum value from data synchronization
February 2008 — Canadian Grocer
In an industry such as grocery where net profits are in the low single digits, every small improvement can mean the difference between profit and loss.
By Paul Inglis
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Posted with permission from Canadian Grocer.

Low-Cost-Country Sourcing
January/February 2008 — eSide Supply Management
There are many factors that herald Latin America's rising popularity as a low-cost-country sourcing alternative to Asia.
By Ricardo Ruiz-Huidorbo
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Lean product management: High-tech manufacturers boost profits by reducing product complexity
11 January 2008 — Manufacturing Business Technology
The combination of lightning-swift product development cycles and intense price competition has left electronics and computer hardware manufacturers looking for new approaches to improve their cost positions.
By Joachim Ebert and Michael Baum
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Hitting Back: Strategic Responses to Low-Cost Rivals
January 2008 — Strategy & Leadership
The way to beat low-cost competitors that have the potential to become serious competitors is to identify and deal with them early, before they get a foothold in a market.
By Jim Morehouse, Bob O'Meara, Christian Hagen and Todd Huseby
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Tailor catalogs to capture savings
13 December 2007 — Purchasing.com
Most companies put enormous effort into clinching the sourcing deal with a supplier, but less effort into teaching employees outside the procurement organization how to buy under the new contract terms. Online catalogs can solve the problem.
By Randy Watson and Suman Sakar
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Stars and Keepers
7 December 2007 — ChiefExecutive.net
About half of all mergers and acquisitions fail to deliver value, depending on what study you’re reading. There is one culprit that's seldom identified but is especially important when the deal involves not the acquisition of physical plants or new geographic markets, but something softer and more difficult to manage—intellectual capital.
By Andrew Green, Melanie Schmidt and Chris Barbin (Appirio, Inc.)
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The Three Things You Need to Get Right in Your Extended
Value Chain
December 2007 — Supply & Demand Chain Executive
As companies increasingly rely on extended supply chains, focusing on these critical operational resources can ensure top performance.
By Steve Mehltretter and Vadim Kapustin
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One on One with Paul Laudicina: Challenges and Opportunities in a New World
26 June 2007 — Consulting Magazine
Paul Laudicina took over as CEO of A.T. Kearney last fall. Consulting Magazine sat down with him to get his take on the future of the business.
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It's Not Easy Being Green
April 2007 — Inside Supply Management
These suggestions may give you a head start in helping your company choose the right path toward environmentally friendly best practices.
By Daniel Mahler and Linda Olsson
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Guru interview: Dan Starta
April 2007 — Emerald for Managers
A.T. Kearney’s Daniel Starta talks about the next wave of new technology and the importance of perfect timing to reap its benefits.
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From CPO to CEO
April 2007 — Inside Supply Management
The road to the corner office may not be such a long haul after all, based on recent advancements by supply management professionals.
By John Blascovich
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Value-Based Sourcing: Comparing Apples with Oranges
Winter 2006-07 — cpoagenda.com
>A.T. Kearney consultant Jules Goffre explains how moving from a sourcing process based on minimising cost to one based on maximising value means embracing supplier differences.
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Guru interview: Christian Hagen
March 2007 — Emerald for Managers
A.T. Kearney's Christian Hagen talks about how organizations that understand which technologies will set them apart can invest more effectively.
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Update 2007: The Regional Agenda - USA
January 25, 2007 — World Economic Forum
"Hopefully our talk will be broad - not just Iran/Iraq, but also focus on the cogent domestic issues facing the United States," Paul A. Laudicina, Chairman of the Board and Managing Officer, A.T. Kearney, USA, urged panelists and participants, some of whom had stayed up to see President Bush's State of the Union address. And the discussion was broad, but Iran and Iraq dominated the remarks.
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What Makes Demographics Drive Other Trends?
November 5, 2006 — University of Chicago Graduate School of Business
Demographics are the "sleeper driver" that will affect several other trends, according to Paul Laudicina, managing officer and chairman of the board for A.T. Kearney, in this interview with dean Edward Snyder of the University of Chicago's Graduate School of business.
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A New World of Risk: Protect Your Company When It Takes the Global Plunge.
September 15, 2006 — CIO.com
This summer's train bombings in Mumbai hit close to home for American CIOs with offshore operations in India. This time, no U.S. companies reported major interruptions. But in an increasingly integrated world, CIOs can't afford to be reactive in their management of global risk, says Paul Laudicina, recently appointed chairman of A.T. Kearney and author of World Out Of Balance: Navigating Global Risks To Seize Competitive Advantage.
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Is the World Really Out of Balance?
July 24, 2006 — Global Services
Paul A. Laudicina is A.T. Kearney’s newly elected Chairman of the Board. He is also known for his 2004 bestseller World Out of Balance on integrating risk into business and planning for change, rather than reacting to it. Laudicina spoke with Juhi Bhambal, Global Services’ Executive Editor-Print, in his first exclusive with the media after his election.
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