Over the next three years, manufacturers increasingly plan to use service as a competitive differentiator and aim to grow business through product service innovation and value-added services for existing products, according to Business Strategy: Modernizing the Service Chain with Smart Technology, a report from IDC Manufacturing Insights.

Supply chain, logistics and warehouse operations are at the heart of most companies' physical processes, either inbound into production or outbound to customers. This is never truer than for the food and beverage manufacturing industry in the UK.

HighJump Software Inc. has acquired Evenex, a provider of cloud-based applications for business-to-business integration.

Jeff Hedges, president of OPEX Material Handling, outlines some of the major challenges confronting e-commerce providers, including rising costs, tax issues and global regulation.