Aberdeen's research shows point-of-sale transaction data from retail locations is still a hurdle for 66 percent of manufacturers. The low levels of transaction data sharing cause increased complexities in tracking promotion effectiveness at the store or field level.

Business process management will continue to be a topic of interest to supply chain companies in 2009. Because process change can be implemented without significant cash investments, BPM will stay fashionable in lean economic times. Adoption will be compartmental for a number of reasons: the economy, organizational politics and the lack of any vendor solution that completely meets business requirements.