Zhang Yuan's business started with favors for relatives: an aunt who wanted baby formula, a cousin looking for Ugg boots. She was a college student here in Australia, and every dollar helped, so she mailed the items back to China and charged a bit of a commission.
New government regulations of the drug industry drove the need for a more responsive, feature-rich and flexible EDI environment - but that created opportunities for one pharmaceutical company.
A conversation with supply-chain executives about the tools, talents and techniques that will be needed to create accurate and responsive demand forecasts in the years ahead.
Responding to both investor demand and Securities and Exchange Commission mandates, the 10-Ks, 10-Qs, and proxy statements issued by companies contain more nonfinancial information than ever before.
It seems everywhere you look, traditional original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are investing heavily in artificial intelligence (AI). Ford recently announced its plans to invest $1bn over the next five years in Argo AI, a start-up formed just in December whose focus is the development of autonomous vehicles. Similarly, last year GM invested $1bn when it acquired Cruise Automation, another AI start-up.
Vaccine supply chains are the Chewbacca of the vaccine world: not because they are hairy (although they can get hairy), but because they are very important yet very underappreciated. And like the Star Wars character Chewbacca, vaccine supply chains are much more complex than they may seem.
"It's America first, you better believe it," President Trump said, standing over a tool cabinet at the Snap-On Tools headquarters in Kenosha, Wis., where he signed his "Buy American, Hire American" executive order this month to favor American companies for federal contracts.
Cocoa-growing countries will fight a price rout by banding together and co-ordinating production strategies, the International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO) has said.