While vast "smart products" opportunities are allowing many high-tech companies to grow and lower their cost of goods sold, 57 percent do not have access to reliable product genealogy information, and 72 percent believe their product data is less than 80 percent accurate.

Consumers find it easy to use social media for brand engagement, but that doesn't mean they are using it.

A recent report suggests that although online sales in the business-to-business sector are growing, those companies should be willing to invest more in e-commerce platforms.

If you think the internet's busy now, just wait until next year. Gartner estimates there will be 6.4 billion connected devices in 2016, up 30 percent from this year.

Shrink, comprised of shoplifting, employee or supplier fraud, and administrative errors, rose in the U.S. from 1.28 percent of sales in 2013-2014 to 1.97 percent during 2014-2015, based upon responses from common retail respondents who participated in Global Retail Theft Barometer surveys both years. Globally, this compares to 1.42 percent, a figure also up from the previous .94 percent average of all common retailers surveyed the previous year.

Amber Road, a provider of global trade management solutions, says its proprietary process for collecting, translating, interpreting and updating country-specific trade regulations has achieved ISO 9001:2008 recertification.

Blood diamonds. Conflict minerals. And now, conflict palm oil.