Datalliance Expands Staff to Support Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) Growth in Consumer Goods

CINCINNATI--Datalliance today announced the addition of several key people to support the continued growth of Datalliance VMI in the consumer goods industry. Doug Bethea, Scott Kleinert, and Steve Kemen bring extensive experience in sales, information technology, vendor managed inventory, and category management from their previous roles with Procter & Gamble, IBM, and National Marketshare Group. Datalliance has been providing VMI services to leading suppliers, distributors and retailers for over 10 years and manages over 26,000 inventory locations and over 11 million SKU’s across multiple industries.

Doug Bethea – Bethea comes to Datalliance from Procter & Gamble where his 29 year career spanned a variety of information technology leadership roles in sales, supply chain, and customer logistics. Bethea led the development of P&G’s Continuous Replenishment Program (CRP) that became the Vendor Managed Inventory standard for the consumer goods industry. The program revolutionized the relationship between manufacturers and retailers resulting in significant supply chain efficiencies and broad-scale industry adoption in the Efficient Consumer Response movement.

Scott Kleinert – In his previous position at IBM as Director of Supply Chain Management/Solution Development, Kleinert was responsible for the development of supply chain solutions focused on logistics, supply chain visibility, and asset management. While at IBM he established an Americas-based solutions team to develop, deliver, and support a business initiative providing global vendor managed inventory services between manufacturers and their partners. Kleinert managed IBM’s Consumer Driven Supply Chain initiative, where as Managing Director of a consortium of global businesses, he was responsible for managing and coordinating member supply chain strategies, solution deployment and issue resolution.

Steve Kemen - Kemen has extensive experience in Category Management and in designing/developing software applications for the consumer goods, financial, and medical equipment industries. Over the past 6 years, Kemen has worked extensively as a Category Manager and Analyst for National Marketshare Group. He was assigned to The Kroger Company and was the lead analyst on a number of categories including school/office, lighting, cosmetics, electrical, suntan, hardware, and automotive. He has worked closely with many consumer goods manufacturers such as GE Lighting, Henkel, Sanford, Elmer’s, Physicians Formula, Hawaiian Tropic, Jasco, Steel City, and SOPA. He is familiar and experienced with the various industry-related data sources, such as AC Nielsen, IRI, and Dunn Humby.

Carl Hall, President, Datalliance, stated, “We are very happy to welcome this talented group of individuals to Datalliance. VMI is definitely on the upswing in the consumer goods industry and many companies are looking to replace their costly first generation VMI systems with a more cost-effective solution. Our consumer goods customer base is steadily growing because Datalliance provides lower total cost of ownership and is easier and faster to implement. Doug, Scott, and Steve will help us continue this success and growth in consumer goods.”

About Datalliance

Datalliance is a leading provider of collaborative commerce services, and the world’s largest independent VMI service provider. Delivered via the Internet using the ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS) model, Datalliance solutions make it easy for suppliers and their customers to establish sales and inventory management relationships that fully align business objectives, improve collaboration, and streamline supply chain operations. Datalliance manages billions of dollars in orders, millions of SKUs, and thousands of locations for leading Fortune 1000 companies in a number of industries. For more information about Datalliance, visit www.datalliance.com.