While planning a global high-tech product launch can seem daunting, working with your company's stakeholders and outside partners from the earliest stages can help ensure success.

Cementing its role in the North American supply chain, the value of intermodal transport speaks for itself with another year of solid growth. Building on the industry's positive 2012 performance, total shipments improved 4.6 percent in 2013, according to the Intermodal Association of North America's (IANA) fourth quarter and year-end Intermodal Market Trends & Statistics. Domestic container volume "” which doubled over the past 10 years "” outperformed other markets in 2013, capping the year with a 9.4 percent bump, which was consistent with Q4 growth of this segment at 9.0 percent.

Moving a box from A to B is much the same in any country, but paperwork, processes, terminology and regulations vary greatly, presenting a barrier to global TMS rollouts. Elie Hiller of Transwide discusses ways to meet this challenge.

Product lifecycle management and line extensions are vital to companies operating in the high-tech industry, perhaps more so than any other industry. However, while many high-tech executives believe they are industry experts in regards to product innovation, confidence wanes in their ability to manage other parts of the product lifecycle, particularly when it comes to managing global product launches.

Analyst Insight: Service providers are blending services across consulting, technology and outsourcing to deliver ongoing operational capabilities to supply chain organizations. Bundling multiple services for a client is not unusual or new. For at least the past five years, providers with multiple service lines have been presenting bundled services to clients. - Michael Dominy, Research Director, Gartner

Analyst Insight: Combining supply chain analysis and consulting topics is more logical than you think. Best practice/market leading companies regularly use outside consultants. When you look at the roll of consultants' clients, it includes all the leading companies. Leaders know that to innovate, they have to 'break the rules" - extending beyond status quo. They know that analyzing and improving supply chain process performance requires full-time commitment and expertise - to look at processes from the outside in.