You've selected a warehouse management system (WMS) for your multichannel retail operation. Implementation is often where things get tricky for supply chain managers.

Wal-Mart EVP and CFO Brett Biggs says the company has been investing in both front-facing and back-end technology to help Wal-Mart work differently.

The sharing economy, aka Uberization, may be the biggest disruptor to supply chain strategic thinking since lean. Surprisingly, it still ranks last among our Future of Supply Chain survey respondents as a "disruptive and important technology." I suspect this will change soon.

Paul Keel, senior vice president of supply chain management at 3M, explains how 3M is working to improve its supply chain capabilities.

Perhaps the most overworked word in the supply chain management lexicon is "visibility." Yet it's difficult to overstate the importance of a view into what's going on in the supply chain. After all, you can't source, make, move, store, deliver, measure or improve what you can't see. At the same time, the value of supply chain visibility is lessened if it isn't comprehensive — encompassing the supply chain from one end to the other, from upstream to downstream.