In this exclusive video interview live from the show floor of HR 2013, Doug Whittle of Whittle Consulting speaks with Lauren Bonneau of insiderPROFILES about the business side of HR IT. Whittle covers change management strategies in HR IT projects, preparing for generational issues in the IT environment, and provides his advice on breeding leadership in an organization.

I heard a story at one point in my career that I could never verify, so I won't use the company name. But it was perhaps the best lesson in supply chain visibility I've ever heard so I'll share it with you. It went something like this.

The VP of supply chain for a high-end handbag maker is walking through the streets of Tokyo and sees a vendor on the street selling knock-offs of his product. He'd seen this kind of thing before and found it sort of amusing and just for kicks, he picks up one of the bags and examines it. He looks at the materials, he looks at the stitching, he looks at the logo--it's all flawless. Exactly like the real thing. In fact, he buys one from the vendor and brings it back to his VP of manufacturing who examines it and he can't tell the difference between the knockoff and the real thing. "So I thought either these counterfeiters are getting REALLY good or there's something else going on here," he told me.

Can you guess what's going on here?

The handbag maker was using a contract manufacturer in Asia to produce the handbags based on their designs and materials. The only problem was the handbag maker didn't monitor that factory very closely. So the factory would work hard to fulfill the volume required by the handbag maker and then, with whatever time was left over, would continue making the handbags for sale on the black market. So other than flowing through materials a bit more quickly than forecasted, the handbag maker might never have known because all of their customer commitments were being met. (In fact the VP of supply chain told me this factory was one of their favorites because of the speed with which they churned out the handbags--no wonder why!)

It was a very harsh lesson in supply chain visibility and while it's probably 10 years old today, multi-tier supply chain visibility remains elusive for many companies and industries in an era of increasingly outsourced manufacturing. (NOTE: Frequent business travelers may want to skip the next part of this blog post).

Case in point: The aerospace and defense industry. According to a recent survey of aerospace and defense firms by KPMG, "A&D organizations have far less visibility into their supply chains than peers in other sectors. Only 27 percent of A&D organizations said they had visibility past their Tier 1 suppliers (versus 41 percent of non-A&D respondents) while nine percent said they had no supplier visibility at all."

So 9% of the firms making airplanes, spacecraft and missiles have no supplier visibility at all? Without naming names, I think there's one company you've probably got in mind that has seen some major production and PR problems as a result of this lack of supplier visibility. But I won't beat that dead..uhh...slightly wounded aircraft maker here.

And the problem flows both ways in the A&D supply chain. The KPMG survey found that nearly half of A&D suppliers report encountering significant challenges in aligning operations to real-time fluctuations in customer demand, indicating the OEMs aren't providing visibility either.

So if we're going by that one survey, the A&D industry might not be the one to benchmark for supply chain visibility best practices. But never fear--if it's SCM benchmarking you want, it's benchmarking you'll get.

The electronics industry historically has been a leader in the use of supply chain technology to increase visibility. If you're looking to hear some best practices straight from that horse's mouth, you might want to check out this webcast next Wednesday featuring Applied Micro's use of SAP supply chain solutions: bit.ly/153rAf9

SAPinsider Senior Writer Ken Murphy recently interviewed Jabil Circuit's Rocio Timko and Charles Nichols at the SAPinsider SCM 2013 conference to hear more about that company's use of SAP Supply Network Collaboration. Check out the video here. 

And if it's consumer products you're looking to benchmark against, this case study -- Conair Improves Supply Chain Planning Accuracy and Customer Service -- would be a good resource for you.

The overall lesson here is whether you're making airplanes, hair dryers, microchips or handbags, you have to know what your suppliers are doing in today's ever more global market.

Now, if you'll excuse me I have to head downtown and find a knockoff Rolex in time for Father's Day. (Just kidding dad!)

In this interview recorded live at HR 2013, Eric Wood, managing consultant at Exaserv, discusses how structural authorizations can increase an organization's IT security. Wood provides firsthand examples of projects where structural authorizations were used to increase security.

SAP's announcement last month that it would recruit and hire more than 600 autistic workers struck a chord with me. Eventually.

As an optimist by nature, I want to believe good news is really good news, but as a business journalist for the past (coughs loudly) years, I know often it isn't quite as good as it sounds. We've all been burned a few times by lines like: "We really want to help low-income people secure mortgages and buy homes." (Translation: We're selling these loans immediately for profit knowing we've just ruined this family's life).  or "We are happy to bring jobs to this economically depressed area of the world." (Translation: We're starting a slave labor camp). 

So, in some of these situations we've been conditioned to skip over these types of initiatives. But SAP's program stuck in the back of mind, so I decided to read a bit more about it and consider both SAP's approach and its motives. And after having done that, I'm happy to say I'm enthusiastically optimistic about the program.

For starters, SAP is partnering with a specialist organization to gain business benefit out of this program and they're up front about that. In fact, that's the whole point. SAP's press release says "SAP sees a potential competitive advantage to leveraging the unique talents of people with autism, while also helping them to secure meaningful employment."

And don't take SAP's word for it either. According to research in this article in the New Scientist, "employees with autism bring more to the table than good concentration. Benedetto De Martino at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena has shown that people with autism make better decisions than "neurotypicals" when it comes to making a rational choice. They are less swayed by emotion." And there is a lot of other evidence out there if you are interested.

Of course, SAP did get some positive coverage in the mainstream media when they announced the initiative. Heck, even my mother said she saw the announcement in the newspaper and commented on it knowing my job is somehow related to SAP. 

So it certainly got the SAP name in front of people that might not otherwise see it --and in a very positive light. For a public company, that's great exposure, sure. But if SAP just wanted a bit of good press, it would partner with some celebrity spokesperson, take out the checkbook and make a big public donation to an autism-related charity, issue the press release, and be done with it. This goes so far beyond that (he said optimistically).

To me, SAP's true "hidden agenda" here is a great one -- to send the message to other major (public) companies and organizations that there are ways you can make the world a better place and gain business value. And today the big companies could use some inspiration. Weighing the benefits of socially conscious (for lack of a better term) programs vs. possible reputational/business risk is a very thorny issue for even the best intentioned companies and organizations. For example, major colleges in the U.S. are struggling with the popular demand by students that schools divest their fossil fuel holdings in their endowments. Sure, colleges and universities want to be on the forefront of the environmental movement, but would they risk financial gain to do so? Well, that's a completely different question.

The message SAP is sending is that if you are creative and if you partner with experts in a given field (Specialisterne in this case) and you don't just jump on the latest cause half-heartedly, there can be a win-win approach. And that "message" is, to me, the real value of SAP's program. In the grand scheme of things, giving 650 autistic people work isn't going to eliminate the challenges the millions of other autistic people face in their search for employment. But if it inspires other companies to change their perception and practices in this area, THAT could have a very big impact. Likely bigger than you might have thought. According to the Centers for Disease Control here in the U.S. in 2008, one in every 88 children -- more than 1% -- has an autistic spectrum disorder. That's up from one in every 150 only six years prior. If we can change the perception of 1% of people from being "unemployable" to being a "competitive advantage" that benefits all of us.

And just to make sure I wasn't being overly optimistic or naive on this whole thing I checked in with the president of the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, an advocacy organization in the U.S. run by and for autistic adults seeking to increase the representation of autistic people across society. And I'm happy to report he's in support of SAP's program.

"We're very pleased by and applaud SAP's announcement and have reached out to them to learn more about their plans in North America," said Ari Ne’eman, president of ASAN. His priorities for these kinds of hiring initiatives are ensuring that autistic workers are offered the same wages and benefits as non-autistic workers and making sure these hiring opportunities take place within integrated workplace environments.

"We're excited about this development and want to encourage other companies to follow SAP's lead," Ne'eman said.

I couldn't have said it better myself.