Surrounded by an explosion of data, most forecasting systems have no way to leverage or take advantage of it.

For logistics-driven companies, advances in mobile computing and communications in the last decade now are leading us toward what Gartner has called true supply chain execution convergence. The potential gains - lower costs, increased efficiency, less waste, reduced environmental impact, higher customer satisfaction and overall improved profitability - are simply too big to ignore. However, corporate executives and planners should proceed carefully in positioning their companies to get the highest return on their investment in converging supply chain execution technologies.

In the world of enterprise management software, logistics and transportation has often been seen as a very isolated island. Those of us on the inside know that the logistics world continues to be just as fragmented and disconnected as it was 20 or 30 years ago. Logistics providers operate blindly within the supply chain, and have little idea of what is happening upstream or downstream. It's a fundamental problem that is especially ripe for disruption. Get ready, because major change is on the horizon.