Deborah Hickey, Senior Director, Channel Operations, Microsoft, Entertainment & Devices

The fickle nature of consumers is blatantly represented with two recent new-product releases from Microsoft. “For Halo 3, people will line up at midnight to be first to get their hands on one of the hottest products of the year; whereas Zune is still the new kid on the block.” This is according to Deborah Hickey whose job it is to maximize both ends of the demand spectrum as senior director in the entertainment and devices division responsible for channel operations at Microsoft.

Halo 3 is a flagship product for Microsoft and was the biggest entertainment launch of the year doing $170 million in the first 24 hours in the U.S. alone. “People will line up to do whatever it is you ask them to do,” said Hickey. “When you’re launching a product like that, your retailers and supply chain partners accommodate you to ensure product is on-shelf for launch.”

On the other end of the spectrum is Zune, a product in the music-player category where Apple’s iPod has 80 percent of the marketshare. “We’re a newcomer in that space,” said Hickey. “We work closely with the retail guys and understand what their requirements and constraints are at this time of year. We then do everything we can in our supply chain to meet their requirements.”

Presenting a comparison of the Halo 3 and Zune releases at CES’ Consumer Electronics Supply Chain Academy (CESCA) this year, Hickey will be telling the story of how Microsoft is constantly refining and upgrading its supply chain processes and in so doing actively seeks the expertise of its partners – whether it’s their vendors or retail customers.

“Our vendors need to help us innovate in terms of supply chain execution,” said Hickey. “Suppliers like Technicolor and Flextronics work with publishers and CE companies that play in the same space. They know what the best practice is.”

“Even though we had great execution of Halo 3, it could have been better,” said Hickey. “How we did it in terms of supply chain management needs improvement. We need more agility and flexibility throughout the supply chain,” she said. When launching a title like Halo 3, the two days that can be saved in lead-time is huge at the end of cycle.

“The same for Zune,” said Hickey. “We need to be more innovative in moving large volumes of product from manufacturing to shelf.”

Hickey has been with Microsoft for 13 years having recently relocated from a Microsoft European operation center in Dublin where she gained a breadth of experience across all the supply chain functions. At various times she has worked in distribution, manufacturing, and forecasting.

Hickey has carried her experience at other consumer electronics companies with her through her career. Prior to Microsoft, she worked for a company called Alps Electric, a Japanese multinational based in Ireland that supplied mice and keyboards for all the big PC companies. They ran a program where everybody in the facility was trained in lateral thinking. “They took the best of the Japanese work environment in terms of culture and lean philosophy and combined it with innovative ways of solving problems,” she said.

Hickey has only been in the U.S. for nine months and is looking forward to the Academy meeting for its opportunity to get out and meet peers in other companies in order to build a network. “It’s only when you sit down and listen to what some other companies are doing, particularly smaller companies, that you realize, ‘We’d never have thought of that!’”