Analyst Insight: Despite the fact executives downgraded risk levels in our recent risk survey, the impact of current economic conditions is long lasting. Global supply chains will continue to face major risks in 2010 and beyond. As such, designing a supply chain risk management strategy is still critical.

Analyst Insight: The dirty underside of supply chain is confronting the many risks inherent in 24x7-operations entrusted to "partners" in far-flung regions who are conducting fraudulent activities as well as dealing with unpredictable events. The big market here is risk transfer-insurance and others services to mitigate the impact of events. In addition, step by step, we are beginning to see approaches-metric and risk assessments methods, auditing and monitoring services, and technology - to support risk avoidance and assure recovery.

Analyst Insight: Many businesses have been paying more attention to the concept of software as a service (SaaS) and how it can be incorporated into their IT portfolios. The most commonly stated benefits -rapid deployment, lower cost, and scalability - must be balanced by other key decision criterion, such as fit, ROI, and risk.

Analyst Insight: Today's supply chain managers operate in a distributed, networked environment, where multi-tier process visibility and effective partner collaboration are critical to success. In order to successfully balance the risks and rewards of this new environment, companies need to have much more transparent and responsive supply chains than in the past.

Analyst Insight: 2009 was filled with mergers and acquisitions led by mega mergers. During this time, the definition of "pharmaceutical company" evolved, as the big players began morphing into global health care providers. As the evolution continues, processes for integrating multinational supply chains, new product lines, and rationalizing LSP contracts will challenge even the most capable and visionary supply chain executives.

Analyst Insight: Economic volatility has been the cause for the majority of supply chain disruptions in 2008-2009, forcing companies to put an increased emphasis on supply chain management. In today's multi-enterprise demand-supply networks, process collaboration, closed-loop integration between planning and execution, and enhanced focus on intelligence and performance management become key to success.

Analyst Insight: In Aberdeen's Supply Chain Executive's Agenda 2009 study, the following top market pressures were reported by the process industry respondents: economic and financial volatility, rising supply chain management costs, escalating customer service demands, and rising business complexity of managing an increasingly global business network. Process industry firms have a number of differences in the way they manage their manufacturing and supply chains and are now increasing their focus on supply chain performance.

Analyst Insight: The regulatory environment for food and beverage manufacturers is changing. President Obama has reinvigorated the FDA's Food Safety Working Group and change is on the way. It is more important than ever for food and beverage manufacturers to get ahead of the curve and ensure food safety and traceability across their entire supply chains, from the field to the fork.