Third-party logistics will not become a commoditized service as long as providers continue to add value and differentiate their product offerings, says Greg Spudic, vice president of marketing and sales at Dimerco Express.

Small to medium-sized shippers have a low adoption rate for transportation management systems because traditional systems cost too much and are not geared to the specific needs of smaller businesses, says J.P. Wiggins, vice president of logistics at 3Gtms.

Long waiting lines of incoming trucks at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach create an unacceptable drag on productivity, says Mike Stark, president and CEO of Pacer Distribution Services and an active member of the Harbor Trucking Association. Stark explains how adaptive appointment software could help remedy this situation.

Big data can be a powerful enabler of better business decisions, but getting the right data to the right person in an actionable form presents huge challenges. Richard Sharpe, CEO of Competitive Insights, helps demystify the subject and explains why mastering big data is worth the effort.

Comfort with the status quo is the biggest barrier to supply chain transformation, which makes sense since true transformation is both painful and difficult, say Trissential's Rich Sherman and Robert Sabath, two long-time supply chain evangelists.

Ulf Harring, head of the global supply chain at Electrolux, discusses the strategy behind Electrolux's global sales and operations planning process and the challenges of rolling S&OP out across a globally diversified company.

GE Healthcare needed an automated solution to screen its many global customers against restricted and denied parties lists, but that solution also had to work seamlessly with multiple existing ERP systems. George Grabher, ITC Program Leader at GE Healthcare, explains how a global trade management solution from Amber Road meets these needs.

To retain and keep profitable customers in today's economic environment, 3PLs must provide innovative solutions that make the supply chain more efficient for both the customer and the provider, says John Dillon of APL Logistics.