Day One at eForum Offers Great Meat and Potatoes Advice

It was indeed a good sign when hotel staff had to bring extra chairs into the conference rooms during this year’s Aftermarket eForum, which kicked off yesterday in Chicago. Love it or hate it, technology is, and will continue to be, a critical tool for those who want to succeed in the aftermarket. And by the looks of yesterday's record-breaking turnout, this industry is ready to embrace it.

by Amy Antenora
Editor, aftermarketNews.com

CHICAGO — It was indeed a good sign when hotel staff had to bring extra chairs into the conference rooms during this year’s Aftermarket eForum, which kicked off yesterday in Chicago. Love it or hate it, technology is, and will continue to be, a critical tool for those who want to succeed in the aftermarket. And by the looks of yesterday’s record-breaking turnout, this industry is ready to embrace it.

While many conferences and symposiums start out with general overviews of broad-reaching topics, the 2006 Aftermarket eForum kicked off with an afternoon of true ‘meat and potatoes’ break-out sessions and panel discussions. With three topics to choose from, aftermarket executives charged with leading their company’s information technology efforts were given a wealth of great take-home information, on e-marketing, e-commerce and supply chain transformation.

THE ROAD TO E-COMMERCE

The e-Commerce track session, hosted by Steve Smith of Gcommerce and Adrian Klingel of Illumaware, took a step-by-step approach at spelling out the best ways to get started with standards based technology. In the session, titled “eCommerce 101,” Klingel tried to impart humor into an otherwise heady topic. “I told you this was riveting didn’t I?” Klingel teased the crowd. Klingel and Smith, walked attendees through the most important industry standards and the best ways to prepare and disseminate a company’s data through the standards-based processes.

SUPPLY CHAIN TRANSFORMATION

Elevating the conversation just a bit, David Demers of Avicon and Tom Escott of Schneider Logistics, provided a detailed look at the full spectrum of steps involved in making a change in supply chain practices in their session titled, “Supply Chain Transformation – Elevating Supply Chain Transformation to a Core Competency. Demers started out the discussion by defining what exactly a supply chain transformation is – a way of understanding reality that emphasizes the relationships and interdependencies among an operating systems’ various elements. Most companies come from a linear or sequential way of approaching business, however going forward Demer said, more businesses will see the value in taking an integrating operating systems approach. Described as a fresh approach to supply chain initiatives, Demers explained that the key is taking a systems’ ‘DNA’ and configuring it in a way that makes the most sense. Blending these ‘board room metrics’ into a continual cycle of visualizing, prioritizing, configuring and achievement is the key to success, Demers said.

OPTIMIZING YOUR (ELECTRONIC) MARKETING

Once you’ve taken all the necessary steps to refine and strengthen your business internally, it’s time to take a look at the face your company presents to the world. In the third track option of the afternoon, Dan Jondron of Advanced Digital Strategies lead a panel featuring Lon Bollenbacher (Yahoo! Search Marketing), Luanne Brown (eTool Developers) and Thomas Moore (Digital Performance, Inc.), each of whom talked about the best ways to optimize consumer and b-to-b websites, from testing a site’s user-ability to creating a robust web storefront.

While the language itself may make the process sound like a complicated task, it’s not. As Jondron puts it, “Take the ‘e’ off of ‘eMarketing’ and it’s just marketing. It’s no different. Not building up traffic on a strong website is like printing up 1,000 great brochures and letting them sit on a shelf somewhere.”

_______________________________________

Click here to view the rest of today’s headlines.