Jim Preuninger, chief executive officer of Amber Road, outlines the challenges that companies face, when they seek to integrate product design with sourcing. Their success or failure promise to have a significant impact on the supply chain, he says.

Target's supply chain woes are coming to a boil. Out-of-stocks and sometimes entirely empty shelves have become all too common, and have come to the attention of the national media.

Are companies really shifting their manufacturing operations out of China and back to the West? The answer isn't a simple one, says Akhil Oltikar, vice president of supply chain solutions at Riverwood Solutions. He looks at the many issues that global manufacturers take into account when deciding where to site their operations.

RangeMe, an online platform serving the consumer packaged goods (CPG) sector, has launched operations in the U.S.

JDA Software Group Inc. has integrated its JDA Intelligent Fulfillment and Labor Productivity applications with order-management software from IBM Commerce.

Tradeshift, vendor of a software platform for supplier collaboration, has acquired Merchantry, a cloud-based provider of product information-management (PIM) services.

Tom Enright, research director with Gartner, talks about his recently completed survey on the challenges that are confronting multichannel retailers today, with a particular focus on the issue of returns. He offers his view on what constitutes excellence in the returns process.