Integrating supply chain planning and execution is vital to today's businesses, but 80 percent of the data that most companies need to achieve this integration lies outside their four walls. Mark Cosway, vice president of industry sales at GT Nexus, explains a new approach to solving this problem.

A few years ago, DHL Express was in a downward spiral of data quality. The company had used a Microsoft costing tool deployed locally in the 200 countries in it operates. Graeme Aitkin, vice president of business controlling, said the tool used employee interviews to localize cost allocations, asking couriers how they spent their time every day. In the old days, he said, when the data wasn't available, it wasn't possible for a company to have a unified costing and pricing system across a global company.

It's a military truism that amateurs talk strategy while professionals study logistics. Two engaging new World War II histories remind us why logistics matter more. In fact, in wartime, logistics eats strategy for lunch.

One of the most constant staples of science fiction is its view of the automated world of the future. Whether it was the giants of the genre (H.G. Wells, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Jules Verne), animated movies or the Tomorrowland section at the Disney properties, all envisioned a world where manual labor was largely replaced by intelligent machines rapidly performing dull, repetitive tasks.