Chief financial officers of corporations that have already set up captive insurance companies or are thinking about setting one up should ponder the benefits of self-insuring cyber perils and supply chain business-interruption risks via a captive to supplement commercial insurance coverage.

Supply chain performance has a big impact on consumers' perception of a company and its brand, says Bill Tomasi of IBS. He suggests that companies need to more actively incorporate SCM into their brand protection strategies.

Over the past decade, Chinese companies have built bulging order books in Africa, cutting their teeth in a part of the world where Western competitors, when present at all, have not brought their A team. The Chinese astutely calculate that the wealth they accumulate in Africa and the lessons they learn will serve them well as they push into bigger, richer, and tougher markets.