Richard J. Sherman, president of Gold & Domas Research and director of strategic development for CSCMP, summarizes the practical road map to supply chain transformation that he explores in depth in his new book.

Jeff Metersky, vice president of the Sales, Inventory and Operations Planning Practice at Chainalytics, explains how a new approach to benchmarking can help companies improve their forecast accuracy and why even small improvements make a big difference.

Twenty-seven percent of Americans say they will spend less on gifts this holiday period, but around the same number (32 percent) will direct more of their present-buying dollars to Amazon. In particular, big-spenders will drive an expected holiday boost for the giant online retailer, with 27 percent of people earning over $150,000 a year saying they will spend more on Amazon. The survey was conducted online on December 4th, 2012. Two thousand consumers in the U.S. participated in the survey.

Best Buy recently removed e-mail support from its web site, a move the company said was designed to improve response and to give customers the kind of interactions they seek. The problem with this change is twofold.

If you're looking for more evidence of the bipolar nature of mobile shoppers, look no further. The Harris Poll people have what you need. In what should be called the NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) effect, some 66 percent of Americans polled said they expect mobile payments to eventually replace payment cards and even cash-but not their cards and cash.

Retail is in a dramatic transformative phase. Consumers' multichannel access and shopping make multi/merged channel fulfillment the focus for retail. No more relegating supply chain to the backwaters of retail management!

A new innovation study by Latitude, Next-Gen Retail: Mobile + Beyond, finds that smartphones and tablets are fundamentally changing how people think about shopping and, by extension, their everyday lives. The research reveals that mobile shopping makes people feel more relaxed, productive and informed, as well as more open-minded and receptive to discovering new things.

A whopping 94 percent of B2B purchasers surveyed in the 2012 hybris State of B2B E-Commerce study said suppliers need to create an online buying experience as simple as using a B2C website.