"Planning for disruption" can seem like a contradiction in terms, but there are measures that food companies can take to protect themselves from the inevitable crises that threaten to derail their supply chains, however unpredictable they might be, says Brian Benjamin, senior director of strategic accounts with Havi Global Solutions.

Retailers are prioritizing immediate investments in customer-facing tactics such as price, marketing and customer service over strategic infrastructure, according to research released from eBay Enterprise.

While the concept behind the "Internet of Things" has been around for about two decades, NEST, the web-enabled thermostat company recently purchased by Google, has popularized the concept. Today, a data-driven infrastructure of internet-connected devices that control utilities, guide our retail shopping experiences, and monitor our health is far from science fiction.

SupplyChainBrain and JobsInLogistics have joined forces in 2014 for the specialized purpose of:

The Federal Trade Commission has updated a longstanding rule governing mail and phone-based retailers to explicitly include e-commerce vendors as well, meaning that online retailers now must abide by a 30-day shipping requirement or refund customers' payments if they can't.