Papa John’s Pizza has been using social media channels to help educate customers where products and ingredients are coming from, and creating time effective ordering options available on channels. Aside from social channels, the company has also used a collaborative technology solution to help support the efficiency of the supply chain. The company outsourced the supply chain needs to Manhattan Associates, a supply chain software company, to help create more time effective and cost saving inventory management. Eric Hartman, Senior Director of Logistics said, “Manhattan solutions allow us to manage inventory levels accurately, efficiently and more dynamically based on actual need—and that has resulted in our being able to reduce overall inventory levels (Manhattan, 2013)”. Using the collaborative software has also provided better solutions to inventory transportation. The software can optimize routes, improving on-time store deliveries, and the overall performance of their fleet (Trebilcock, B., 2014, October). Customer service relies on the speed of the supply chain to help get their products to customers in an effective way that will save time and money.  “Implementation of Manhattan’s solutions has provided unprecedented visibility along with reduced expenses, improved efficiency and productivity in every part of the supply chain (Manhattan, 2013)”. Papa John’s wants to ensure that its “fast food” moves just as quickly throughout every level of the supply chain.

Social media is gaining greater traction in the corporate world. Yes, you read that correctly, your employer wants you to use MORE social media in the workplace. Unfortunately, they are less interested in your mirror selfies and cat photos than they are in the implementation of strategically aligned social media applications for cost savings and business benefit. On March 13, 2017, IBM released a product offering with new capabilities for enterprise social networks. It offers a more simple collaboration across the organization and the employee ‘on-boarding’ experience. IBM Connections 6.0 now links with IBM Cloud Object Storage to provide the option of storage scalability. Other features include ‘Orient Me’, a new form of API-driven construction that pulls information by relevancy for the end user. Another feature – ‘Touchpoint’ – helps new employees get acquainted with their colleagues and facilitates a streamlined orientation process. Touchpoint also reduces the amount of time needed to set up new workspaces. IBM Connections helps employees access files and data in addition to syncing workflows. The platform also helps employees access a variety of data streams, including blogs and wikis and can be delivered via cloud, on-site or as a hybrid solution.