With mobile commerce sales growing quickly, Staples is jockeying to hold onto its role as an ecommerce leader by opening its dedicated mobile site to direct sales from vendors.

So-called "growth through innovation" strategies continue to drive supply chain complexity at a rapid pace, making it harder for businesses to forecast, according to the 2014 Terra Technology Forecasting Benchmark Study. Data shows that demand planning has reached a performance ceiling with forecast value-added declining for a second year.

To meet the challenge of Amazon.com and other e-commerce rivals, the parent of Sears, Roebuck and Kmart launches an initiative to provide one- to two-day delivery of orders to online shoppers nationwide, drawing on inventory from strategically located stores.

The Philippines-based logistics service provider took a concept born in manufacturing, and applied it to the services sector. The result: a significant bump in service quality and customer satisfaction.

You would think that proper risk management would be top of mind for high-tech supply chain executives. So why do they keep getting it wrong?

Right now, many merchants who sell their products online and do not have a distribution center, warehouse or retail store in the state into which their product is sold aren't charging sales taxes, and cannot be required to collect them at the point of purchase. This stands in stark contrast to local wholesaler -distributors and retailers - businesses that have a brick-and-mortar presence on the Main Streets and in the commercial and industrial parks of our cities and towns and who provide jobs to our family members, friends and neighbors - who are required by law to do so.