Technology

Moving from Marketing-Driven to Market-Driven Supply Chains

February 25, 2013

Analyst Insight: The corporate goal is to drive profitable growth. Growth happens through success in new products, capturing market share in emerging markets or brand building in existing regions. To make these initiatives successful, the supply chain matters more and more; however, the greatest success happens when companies shift from marketing-driven to market-driven value networks. In market-driven value networks, companies build the capabilities to listen, test and learn in vitro with zero data latency to maximize market opportunity. - Lora Cecere, Founder of Supply Chain Insights

Supply Chain Disruptions Major Threat to Share Prices of Businesses

February 25, 2013

Forbes

In recent years, supply chains have become longer and more complex, while the severity and frequency of supply chain disruptions seems to be increasing. In close cooperation with Accenture, the World Economic Forum recently presented a report, "Building Resilience in Supply Chains," at the WEF Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland. It indicates that significant supply chain disruptions reduce the share price of affected companies by as much as seven percent on average.

81 Percent of Surveyed Ocean Shippers Look to Cut Costs Through E-Invoicing This Year

February 25, 2013

Inttra

A global study of high-volume shippers and freight forwarders that included four of the top five global logistics providers found that 81 percent of respondents want to receive invoices electronically in 2013.

Linking the Physical and Financial Supply Chains

February 22, 2013

Supply Chain Europe

Electronic invoicing isn't new, writes Nigel Taylor of GXS. It started over 40 years ago with business-to-business (B2B) electronic data interchange (EDI) within private networks. With the advent of the internet in the '90s, e-procurement portals appeared and sparked a frenzy of investment into online industry communities. The e-procurement portals focused on sourcing and purchasing activities, and this narrow focus inevitably led to internet portals dedicated to payables processing.

BizSlate Launches Small Business Supply Chain Assistant

February 22, 2013

Venture Beat

New York-based BizSlate is launching its cloud-based resource planning tool to give small business a hand with their supply chain challenges. Unlike legacy vendors in that sector, including SAP and Netsuite, the technology is specifically designed for department stores, retail chains, small boutiques and the like. Chief executive Marc Kalman says BizSlate is ideal for companies that have "outgrown QuickBooks" but don't have ample resources at their disposal for IT.

Supply Chain Is the Weakest Link in Indian Retail Industry

February 22, 2013

SupplyChainBrain

Analyst Insight: With the government of India recently liberalizing foreign investment into the country's retail sector, many global retailers are eyeing the country as the next expansion opportunity. The experience of early entrants into India's organized retail has shown that supply chain inefficiencies are among the top hurdles to profitability. The unique Indian context requires creative sourcing approaches and significant investment in training and retaining local skilled supply chain talent. - Viktoria Sadlovska, Chief Research Officer, Prameya Research

Reasons for Selecting 3PLs Are Changing

February 22, 2013

SupplyChainBrain

Analyst Insight: Third-party logistics providers continue to be the recipients of outsourcing requirements and have grown to provide a critical business capability, but the business rationale in selecting an outsourcing partner appears to be changing. The use of 3PLs remains compelling, with shipping companies continuing to report productivity gains - along with cost reduction and service enhancement - but in discussions with clients, increasingly manufacturers are looking to leverage industry best practices and process knowledge as a first priority. - Simon Ellis, Director, Supply Chain Strategies Practice, IDC Manufacturing Insights

How to Extend the Life of Your Distribution Assets

February 22, 2013

SupplyChainBrain

Mike Perkins, vice president of fulfillment and manufacturing with L.L. Bean, explains how the company was able to postpone building a new distribution center, despite an increase in sales.

Middle East to Up Cloud Spending

February 21, 2013

Procurement Leaders

The Middle Eastern and Northern African public cloud services market will see strong growth in 2013, experts predict. The increase in spending will represent a 24.5-percent increase from 2012, with revenue forecast to reach $462.3m in 2013, according to Gartner. The Middle Eastern and Northern African public cloud services market is forecast by the research group to grow 13.4 percent in 2012 to total $371.2m, compared to $110bn worldwide.

UK Freight Forwarding Sector Annoyed by Trade Negotiations

February 21, 2013

Handy Shipping Guide

As talks are announced regarding a potential free-trade agreement between the two continental powers, which could simplify and revolutionize the â‚¬450 per annum trans-Atlantic trade there are rumblings in UK freight forwarding circles that another agreement, potentially a precursor to the main agreement and involving the security concerns when shipping goods between the partners, does not appear to hold all that it originally seemed to promise.