Rated the top speaker at LogiCon 2010, we spoke to Jan ahead of LogiCon 2011 to hear his thoughts on the current FMCG supply chain market and in particular, which key trends look set to impact the industry for the next twelve months. With market uncertainty still prevailing throughout Europe, we asked Jan what his key take-away was from the economic crisis. Full interview: http://www.wbresearch.com/logiconeurope/mars.aspx

1. Exclusive Interview with Jans Steuber Supply Chain Change Manager, MARS
Jan Steuber is the Supply Chain Change Manager for Mars Inc. throughout the
European Demand Planning network. With a background of over ten years in
supply chain management, Jan has a strong focus on demand planning
optimisation and transformation. He is responsible with his team for all continuous
improvement and knowledge management projects in Europe and for establishing
latest best practice thinking within the demand planning community.
Rated the top speaker at LogiCon 2010, we spoke to Jan ahead of LogiCon 2011 to hear his
thoughts on the current FMCG supply chain market and in particular, which key trends look set to
impact the industry for the next twelve months. With market uncertainty still prevailing throughout
Europe, we asked Jan what his key take-away was from the economic crisis.
Jan made direct reference to an ongoing Mars initiative to further roll out a consistent S&OP
process together with an advanced demand planning solution to ensure the entire Mars supply
chain is fully integrated. "I believe that you can never underestimate the time you need to invest
to make sure people understand the difference between a system implementation vs. a process
transformation" says Jan. "What we are focused on is how to improve supply chain forecasting
accuracy without outlaying vast quantities of money on unnecessary implementation. Absolutely
critical to the success of any process transformation is ensuring the right resource and time is
allocated from the outset".
"Over the next twelve months I foresee fixed cost reduction being the biggest challenge to face
supply chain professionals over the course of 2011", continued Jan. "This is specifically around
reducing stock costs without hampering the core KPIs. At Mars we have had a continuous drive
to reduce stock with an increased focus on SFA bias".
Jan went on to share his predictions on how the industry would be shaped over the next five
years. "I believe the key change will be increased collaboration with key customers to ensure
end-to-end supply chain performance and delivery. We already see this at Mars where we are
successfully sourcing more insights from our customers by improving our collaboration projects".
He went on to say, "In addition I feel end to end process transparency will be a considerable
focus across the retail and FMCG supply chain spectrum as companies seek efficiency gains."
Jan recognises that LogiCon is an opportunity to look to other companies in the retail and FMCG
space and to learn first hand about their methodologies for achieving process improvement. "In
the current climate, networking is key to staying on top of developments in our industry. For me,
attending LogiCon will be a chance to increase my professional network. In addition to that, I aim
to source three new and innovative ideas on how to improve our demand planning processes at
Mars".
Finally we asked Jan about his external sources of influence and whether he had any
recommendations for his supply chain peers. "I recently read 'Good to Great by Jim Collins"

2. revealed Jan. "The impression it left on me is that you should never be happy with a good result if
you could have achieved a great result."