BT9, a cold-chain management solutions provider, has introduced Xsense, a system designed to ensure all stakeholders in the cold supply chain have full transparency and control over their perishables, anywhere in the world, at any given time.

How much inventory and which items should a company hold, overall and at each stocking location (each DC, store, stockroom, salesperson's vehicle, service depot, etc.)? When to replenish and how many? To the uninitiated, these seem like relatively straightforward daily decisions. But they are anything but simple and can make the difference between a highly profitable vs. out-of-business company.

Spain's University Hospital of Valencia (La Fe) is employing a real-time locating system (RTLS) to track patients and assets throughout its 260,000-square-meter (2.8 million-square-foot) facility, and to allow staff members to identify patients via mobile carts with built-in RFID readers.

The CPG industry faced another year of demand volatility, marked by continued economic turbulence and weak consumer confidence, according to the Terra Technology Forecasting Benchmark Study.

Sage North America say the results of a snapshot survey of small to medium-sized business manufacturers indicate the general health of their businesses is pretty good, and use of their enterprise resource planning systems has benefited them.

For businesses that manufacture aerospace, pharmaceutical or other high-value items, even a single component built into a product can be worth tens of thousands of dollars. Losing track of a basket filled with parts can thus be extremely costly, due not only to each component's cost but the potential loss of production time if assembly is delayed. The solution may be RFID technology, according to Marlin Steel Wire Products, a producer of custom wire baskets and other metal products.

Your customer service representative answers a call from an irate customer. "This darn thing I bought just doesn't work!" he exclaims. "I've tried and tried to get help from your service folks, but they're always late and they can't fix it either. I've had it with you guys. I want my money back!" Big Data can help you retain that customer.

Those who make the investment in business intelligence and the cloud will realize improved cost and operational efficiencies, expanded real-time collaboration with customers, vendors and partners as well as faster and more personalized customer relationships. But how do you get there?

It's not news that salespeople don't like to show their work. Customer relationship management systems were designed to not only collect and mine customer data but also let CFOs and other executives keep a closer eye on their enigmatic sellers. But there's a problem with CRM systems: many salespeople don't want to take the time to use them.