Analyst Insight: Most supply chain management organizations struggle with functional and application silos that make orchestrating and synchronizing business processes across their organization near impossible. Supply chain execution convergence is an emerging Gartner concept where SCE functional silos are broken down and business processes span, optimize and synchronize across traditional functional domains. - Dwight Klappich, vice president, Gartner Inc.

Analyst Insight: Recently, Big Pharma went through a significant period of mergers and acquisitions to gain a global market presence and product offering expansion. Now it appears the tides may be shifting. A segment of Big Pharma is shedding non-core business units and focusing on core profitability. But the acquisition strategy is not dead. These diverging paths are both focused on increasing flexibility and profitability to adapt to market uncertainty. Supply chain planning and adaptability have moved forward as integration of business units has increased in all regions of the globe. - Brian Hudock, partner, Tompkins International