Companies are desperate for new talent to help them achieve supply-chain excellence, as they grapple with ever-larger volumes of data and increasing unpredictability in consumer markets. A SupplyChainBrain Roundtable discussion with Benji Green, director of global supply chain operations with Avaya; Trevor Miles, executive vice president of thought leadership with Kinaxis, and Roddy Martin, managing director of Accenture Supply Chain Strategies.
The globalization of today's economy means that businesses are more interconnected than ever, creating a greater risk of business interruption, supply chain disruption, and exposures that can quickly multiply.
Three transportation industry groups, with support from the U.S. Federal Highway Administration, have formed the National Operations Center of Excellence.
It's been about a decade since companies began talking about the dream of a truly "demand-driven" supply chain. How far have we come? Roddy Martin, managing director of Accenture Supply Chain Strategies, provides a progress report.
China has become by far Africa's biggest trading partner, exchanging about $160bn worth of goods a year; more than a million Chinese, most of them labourers and traders, have moved to the continent in the past decade. The mutual adoration between governments continues, with ever more African roads and mines built by Chinese firms. But the talk of Africa becoming Chinese - or "China’s second continent", as the title of one American book puts it - is overdone.
Cuba is on the threshold of getting, potentially, a massive technology upgrade, thanks to a U.S. decision to ease economic sanctions. But this tiny island nation needs a lot of work.
Across my career, I've participated in scores of software implementations for companies ranging from SMBs to industry giants. Some have gone exceptionally well, while others have encountered delays. Each effort has served as a learning experience, offering insights and lessons learned about the characteristics "smooth" projects share – and the pitfalls to avoid.