Amanpreet Singh, senior director of strategy and operations with Motorola Mobility, discusses his career in supply chain, and outlines the major "pain points" that companies face today, in attempting to gain full visibility of supply and demand.

C.J. Wehlage, vice president of high-tech solutions with Kinaxis, details industry's major supply-chain management challenges - in particular, the difficulty of obtaining full visibility of supply and demand, and dealing with the volatility of markets.

A new MIT study on supply chain risk shows no correlation between the total amount a manufacturer spends with a supplier and the profit loss it would incur if that supply were suddenly interrupted. This counterintuitive finding defies a basic business tenet that equates the greatest supply chain risk with suppliers of highest annual expenditure.

Over the last few years, the conventional wisdom has coalesced around a view that success in emerging markets is primarily a function of outstanding execution - speed, opportunism, tenacity, and guile - instead of a well-thought-out strategy supported by a set of winning and difficult-to-replicate organizational capabilities. In other words, street smarts are supposed to beat MBA smarts every time.