Automotive suppliers are struggling to keep up with increased production, according to a new survey, raising serious concerns among purchasing executives.

The many operational differences between domestic and international transportation has historically meant separate and distinct management of these two sectors. Research shows that today's shippers, however, believe there are efficiencies to be gained by managing both domains on a single platform.

Supply chain is the largest expense for any product company and generally accounts for 60 percent to 90 percent of all costs. Controlling such a substantial expense demands continuous performance improvement and high operational efficiency. Research suggests the existence of a statistically significant relationship between analytical capabilities and supply chain performance. In other words, data analysis can assist in controlling supply chain costs. Further, an analysis of 310 companies from different industries in the USA, Europe, Canada, Brazil and China indicates that analytics of the supply chain plan has the second-biggest influence on supply chain performance.

As tainted-food scandals go, it wasn't so bad. The discovery early this year of unlabeled horse meat in European food products wasn't for the most part a safety issue. It was a violation of cultural norms, to be sure, as well as a truth-in-packaging problem. Most of all, it was a supply-chain failure.

Few observers doubt the immense potential of Brazil, one of the world's most significant emerging economies. Indeed, Brazil has great advantages. Compared with its colleagues in the BRIC quartet of emerging giants, it is richer than India and China and larger and more democratically stable than Russia. It is the largest nation in Latin America, with one-third of the region's population generating 44 percent of its GDP. Already the sixth-largest economy in the world, it could become the fifth by 2020, according to forecasts by the Economist Intelligence Unit. But growth, and the investment decisions that underpin it, doesn't happen by magic. Substantial growth takes enlightened government and well-informed decisions by potential investors.

Analytics companies are popping up everywhere as Big Data starts to work its way into more executive conversations. We've been down this road before; analytics isn't a new concept. However, new related technologies and a better understanding of what's at stake for businesses may make this wave a different one. The key is for everyone to get comfortable with the idea of using the new tools to roll their own analytics.

U.S. multinational companies that routinely allocate their profits to other countries to benefit from low-tax jurisdictions may soon need to change their tactics.