"The holiday season is a completely difficult time for manufacturers and retailers," says Brian Tomlin, an assistant professor of operations, technology and innovation management the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School. "They're making educated guesses and bets on what demand is going to be, and they're not going to get it right every single time."
Indeed, the period from just before Thanksgiving all the way into the New Year is usually the "moment of truth" for retail and manufacturing supply chain and e-commerce systems. Other contributing factors are the critical supply and demand decisions made by logistics, marketing and financial personnel. And not all of them succeed.
Source: CIO, http://cio.com