PALO ALTO, Calif. (Auguest 17, 2010) – The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council and the Business Performance Innovation (BPI) Network, in partnership with NVISION®, has launched a new initiative to drive best practices and thought leadership in Marketing Supply Chain operations planning, forecasting and budget allocation across all areas of the marketing mix. "Mapping + Tracking the Optimized Marketing Supply Chain" will address the key issues and challenges marketers face in the planning, forecasting and mix modeling in the marketing supply chain operational process.

Based on the findings of the Marketing Supply Chain Institute study, Define Where To Streamline , marketers keenly understand that savings, efficiencies and an accelerated go-to-market process could all be achieved if steps were taken to streamline the procurement, forecasting and operational process. Through the research, four key areas of challenge emerged: Management of Obsolescence , Delivery of Customer Experience, Enhancing Improve Speed to Market, and Efficient Sales Enablement. Each of these areas will be explored in a series of papers from the Marketing Supply Chain Institute. Other areas of exploration will include:

• Developing comprehensive print-on-demand strategies


• Enabling optimized workflow and process management systems and practices


• Providing transparency and reporting across the sales enablement process from order entry to product fulfillment


• Measuring and monitoring physical assets to maximize forecast accuracy, budget allocations and utilization of materials

The program will result in a series of targeted papers that reveal best practices developed by leading marketing executives as well as case studies that reveal hard savings and opportunity for measurement and optimization within the supply chain.

For more about the program, please visit www.marketingsupplychain.org .

About the CMO Council
The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council is dedicated to high-level knowledge exchange, thought leadership and personal relationship building among senior corporate marketing leaders and brand decision-makers across a wide-range of global industries. The CMO Council's 5,000 members control more than $150 billion in aggregated annual marketing expenditures and run complex, distributed marketing and sales operations worldwide. In total, the CMO Council and its strategic interest communities include over 12,000 global executives across 100 countries in multiple industries, segments and markets. Regional chapters and advisory boards are active in the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa. The Council's strategic interest groups include the Coalition to Leverage and Optimize Sales Effectiveness (CLOSE), Marketing Supply Chain Institute, Customer Experience Board, LoyaltyLeaders.org, Online Marketing Performance Institute, and the Forum to Advance the Mobile Experience (FAME). www.cmocouncil.org

About NVISION

NVISION® is a division of North American Corporation (NA.com), a leading Marketing Supply Chain solutions provider, helping organizations outsource the operations of their Marketing Supply Chain. By leveraging North America’s leading marketing supply chain consultancy practice, NVISION streamlines and manages print, promotional products and point of sale material for corporate clients utilizing our proprietary sourcing technology and supply chain expertise. Over the past five years, NVISION has saved over $50 million, an average of 20% in Marketing Supply Chain costs, for Fortune 500 corporations. www.nvision-nac.com