Intel, Mondelez and Coca-Cola Refreshments Lead the Way

Almost any conference in any industry depends on practitioners to deliver presentations that add value to attendees.

That is certainly true in supply chain generally, and clearly the case at CSCMP's conference in Orlando last week, as always. So what companies stepped up at CSCMP to contribute to the 90+ sessions this year?

Supply Chain Digest Says... SCDigest has also tracked the results for 2014 through 2016, to see which companies have been stepping up to make contributions over a three-year period. What do you say? Click here to send us your comments Click here to see reader feedback

SCDigest once again reviewed the conference program to see which companies had managers or executives participating either in a panel discussion or giving an actual presentation, as shown in the table below.

That data is based on the descriptions of the sessions in the formal program guide, and may not reflect a few last minutes changes not in that program unless SCDigest editor Dan Gilmore attended a session that had such a change, but overall such differences from the guide were few.

The line between panel and presentation is often a fine one, and SCDigest primarily relies on descriptions from the program guide in making that call.

We give an extra shout out to actual presentations, which in our view require more effort on the part of the participant than do panel discussions, and to our mind usual provide more insight into how to improve a supply chain than do what you gain from a panel, even though such panels are often entertaining. That said, we note that it is often easier to get corporate permission to be on a panel than to lead a full presentation, such as those offered for the supply chain innovation awards track.

As a side note, in some cases there was a clear panel format that we counted as a presentation because the panelist were primarily from one company giving a case study, or say two companies providing detailed case studies.

We don't have any real history, but SCDigest's gut feeling based on attendance at every CSCMP conference going back many years is that the number of panels is rising versus say even five years ago.

Whether this is a good or negative trend is purely a matter of personal opinion.

We will also note the list below does not include vendors such as 3PLs or technology companies, nor academics or consultants, as these types of speakers receive a benefit from participation and are generally happy to be asked to participate.

All that said, below is the list of companies participating in CSMP 2016, sorted from most sessions to those that were involved in just one presentation or panel.

All told, 55 such"end user" companies participated in either a panel or presentation, down just a bit from the 59 involved in 2015.

As can be seen. Intel clearly led the way, with four total participations, including three full-on presentations. Coca-Cola Refreshments and Mondelez International both participated in three sessions.

Congratulations to all of those companies.

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But as with the last two years, SCDigest decided to take it even further.

There are naturally going to be ups and downs for any given company's participation in a particular year, in part because there will be natural variations in simply who is asked to present or be on a panel by track chairs, as well as the current attitude towards such participation in a given company at a point in time.

So SCDigest has also tracked the results for 2014 through 2016, to see which companies have been stepping up to make contributions over a three-year period, as shown in the table below. We cut the participation number for the table at two, leaving off dozens of companies that have had just one session involvement over this three-year period.

Here, Caterpillar tops the list, with six participations over the period, followed by Domino's, HP, Johnson & Johnson, Mondelez and Intel with five each.

It is an interesting list.

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