By leveraging their WMS investment and creating a more central process of control, today's Best-in-Class are spending more time fine-tuning warehouse operations to align with product or customer needs, and take their savings to the next level.

In an effort to drive better efficiency and improve the utilization of the labor force, the most valuable asset in any warehouse, today's Best-in-Class are investing in and creating seamless integration with automation and material handling equipment.

Today's economic uncertainty has brought transportation and distribution operations back to the board room. The fluidity of the supply chain is critical to the long-term success of the organization and should be on everyone's mind.

Expect shipper-carrier relations in 2009 to take a more shipper-centric shape with the shippers dictating the terms. While this is probably not the best long-term strategy, short-term cost pressures will drive many shippers to behave as if this is 1999 and not 2009.

The focus on collaboration and visibility across internal and external departments has clearly provided the Best-in-Class transportation companies with the flexibility and agility necessary to overcome the rising costs in fuel and other shipping costs.

Extreme commodity price volatility has become the norm. To cope, successful sourcing professionals must deeply understand the commodity markets. This means knowing the current and expected industry capacity for delivering that commodity, current and emerging sources of demand, and trading speculation trends.

The global credit crunch is jeopardizing the financial health of our supply chains. In 2009, companies should reassess suppliers' financial stability and implement processes to spot operational red flags that are early warning signals of financial stress.