Everyone wants their business to grow, to broaden its operations within a territory or country and, eventually, across borders to other countries and continents. However, business expansion abroad entails a great deal of forethought, especially with regard to enterprise software applications.

Syncron International AB, a provider of supply-chain and price-optimization technology, has released its 2012 solution suite.

Costly coding requirements have limited adoption of voice technology, but that is changing, says Steve Gerrard, vice president, marketing and strategy, Voxware. The technology is truly adaptive now, which is a key buying criterion.

So-called Big Data can be defined as datasets so large and diverse, they break traditional IT infrastructures. What Big Data is, however, isn't as important as what you can do if you harness its potential and uncover new business opportunities through Big Data analytics.

Your sales people need to do the things that work, and they need to repeat them. If something is demonstrably effective in closing a sale, then it should be discovered and shared - and, even if there's just one sales person, it should be identified and utilized. If your selling process has become complex enough that these processes are no longer easily identified, it's time to look at CRM.

Wipro Technologies has launched m-eXecute, a new mobility application for the manufacturing sector.

Dr. Chaman L. Jain, professor of economics in the Tobin College of Business at St. John's University, talks about how the demand-planning function has changed in his decades of observing global supply chains.

Automobile manufacturer Volkswagen Slovakia is tracking its assembled vehicles as they undergo final servicing and inspection processes at its plant in Bratislava, using a real-time location system (RTLS).

Too many companies are still plagued by a "siloed" mentality which keeps various functions from collaborating fully on demand planning. But Arnold Mark Wells, principal of End-to-End Analytics, sees reason for hope.

Mojix Inc. has made generally available a new version of its STAR 300 System, offering real-time tracking capabilities for supply chains.