Import cargo volume at the nation's major retail container ports is expected to increase 1.6 percent in July compared with the same month last year, and modest year-over-year increases are expected through the holiday season shipping cycle, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released today by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.

Pharmaceutical companies are hiring a little help, and joining with third-party logistics services companies, but are they abandoning too much control over their business, asks a new report by healthcare experts GBI Research.

Cities have long been the world's economic dynamos, but today the speed and scale of their expansion are unprecedented. Through a combination of consumption and investment in physical capital, growing cities could inject up to $30tr a year into the world economy by 2025. Understanding cities and their shifting demographics is critical to reaching urban consumers and to preparing for the challenges that will arise from increasing demand for natural resources (such as water and energy) and for capital to invest in new housing, office buildings, and port capacity.

In a letter sent today, the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) urged the International Longshoremen's Association and the United States Maritime Alliance Ltd. to reach a contract agreement well in advance of the September 30 deadline in order to prevent a disruption to the flow of goods and the lasting economic affects that would result.

As with most government agencies, the U.S. Department of Defense faces intense pressure to be more efficient in how it spends tax dollars. Building greater trust with defense contractors might be the solution, according to a new study sponsored by the U.S. Air Force and co-authored by professors from the University of Tennessee, Auburn University and the University of Alabama.

Thirty-six percent of all targeted attacks (58 per day) during the last six months were directed at businesses with 250 or fewer employees, according to the June 2012 Intelligence Report from Symantec. The figure was 18 percent at the end of December 2011.

In a position paper, the Global Air Cargo Advisory Group warned against the issuance of ad-hoc directives about the utilization of advance electronic data for airfreight security. Instead, the coalition encouraged governments around the world to take cues from the industry and look to the Air Cargo Advance Screening pilot program currently under way in the U.S. for guidance.

After a boost last year, the worldwide growth in IT spending will settle down to about 3 percent this year. That's a key takeaway from a new forecast by industry research firm Gartner.

Thin Film Electronics ASA, a player in development of printed electronics, and Bemis Company Inc., a Fortune 500 supplier of flexible packaging and pressure-sensitive materials, plan to develop a flexible sensing platform that can collect and wirelessly communicate sensor information, for use by food, consumer products and healthcare companies.

In the '90s, ERP officially became a technology market segment challenging MRP, accounting and financial-only package sales. At the time, companies worried that they would confront major replacement challenges when their business changed, grew or (most often) new and better technologies came along, making a compelling argument and value opportunity to replace and migrate upward.