The Warehousing Education and Research Council's annual benchmarking study, DC Measures, shows a majority of respondents believe they are performing better than their competitors. This perception gap is common for warehouse managers, especially when using metrics to improve performance. To bridge the difference between perception and reality, we have to understand the basics and go back to school on metrics. Joe Tillman, Founder TSquared Logistics

Education is falling short at all levels in preparing students for a life in the gig economy.

One of the disruptive impacts of the rise of e-commerce is a shortage of labor to fill a growing number of warehouse positions needed to keep up with increasing e-commerce volume and customer expectations. Distribution hub markets are oversaturated with new DCs and that's driving greater competition for labor. This, at a time when both the working population and unemployment statistics are trending downward. The challenges were never more evident than through the most recent peak season. -George Swartz, Group Vice President, Fortna Inc.

Historic disruption is happening across the food and beverage industries. Changes in consumer preferences and rapid consolidation have created a challenging business environment for many companies. Response to these pressures can't happen fast enough, especially for companies that have historically dominated the market. Shrinking margins and revenue declines mean there is less cash on hand to invest in innovation – and that's driving companies to find new ways to improve cash flow. -Tom Roberts, SVP Global Marketing, PrimeRevenue

Just how do you make a deal, anyway?

As companies digitize and integrate their enterprise and implement advanced analytics, they are learning that collaboration is the key to market leadership. Collaborative channel relationships are transforming the buyer-seller relationship from transactional to strategic. Working together to integrate and share process information, partners experience performance improvement by focusing on the least landed cost at every point in the channel versus leveraging price. Regulatory compliance for track, trace and authentication can only be realized through digitization. -Rich Sherman, Senior Fellow, Supply Chain Centre of Excellence, Tata Consultancy Services

Research into the "industrial" application of the Internet of Things finds unequivocally that IIoT is transforming supply chains. Most of the implementations have been by early adopters trying to get an advantage over their competitors. Projects have a number of different objectives, but typically fall into: more efficient operations; improved customer experience; or new revenue opportunities. -Dan Roberts, Senior Consultant, Cambashi Limited