DB Schenker Logistics is expanding its presence in Africa. Former partner Bochimar Lda. has been integrated into the DB Schenker network, after nine years of a strong and growing partnership.

Supply-chain talent management is Topic A for many executives -- even though they harbor a number of misperceptions about the subject, according to Shay Scott, managing director of the Global Supply Chain Institute at the University of Tennessee.

As manufacturers seek to source quality goods at the lowest cost, supply chains that were once confined to a single country or continent have stretched around the world. Managers have become adept at addressing recurrent risks—frequent, low-impact incidents such as demand fluctuations or supply delays that affect efficiency. However, they have devoted less energy to designing supply chains that prevent or mitigate the impact of disruptive risks such as labor strikes, political unrest, regulatory shifts, and natural disasters. These events can have severe and lasting repercussions on operations, so manufacturers would do well to devise strategies that alleviate this risk.

China's regulators have blocked the P3 mega-alliance between Maersk, MSC and CMA CGM on the grounds that it infringes the country's competition laws between Asia and Europe, particularly with respect to the lines' combined market share of 46.7 percent. The law enforcers appear to believe that the cost reductions gained by the P3 carriers would either have been offset by this unacceptably high risk of market concentration, or would not have been passed back to shippers satisfactorily. Where to now?