Analyst Insight: Based on a survey of 160 supply chain leaders in a recent webinar conducted by Steelwedge, we found that companies captured a whopping 70 percent more data (product, supply, demand and finance) to manage their organizations in 2012. Yet, 77 percent of these businesses are not actually leveraging this data in their S&OP processes, thereby leaving "blind spots" in their decision making processes around critical supply/demand trade-offs. - Nari Viswanathan, Vice President of Product Management, Steelwedge

Analyst Insight: Neither a lack of cogent definitions re: what these services and technologies are nor confusion in pricing models is slowing down interest in cloud, SaaS and on-demand solutions. Our research shows a consistent increase in buyer adoption of enterprise and consumer applications - cloud-accessible - from desk top, smartphones and tablets of all size companies in all industries. - Ann Grackin, CEO, ChainLink Research

Analyst Insight: For the past 30 years, sales and operations planning (S&OP) has been espoused by the Oliver Wight organization based on its founder's concepts. It has manifested itself to include inventory (SIOP) and has morphed into integrated business planning (IBP). However, only within the last five years, has it been heralded and crossed the chasm to mainstream business practice. We think it may only be the tip of the iceberg though, not the core solution to step-change improved performance. - Rich Sherman, Supply Chain Discipline Expert at Trissential

Recent issues in the European food supply have resulted in supply chains making the news for all the wrong reasons. Consumers have been shocked at revelations that products labeled as beef also contained significant quantities of horsemeat, up to 100 percent in some cases. More than a month after the Food Safety Authority in Ireland published its findings of traces of horse DNA in burgers, we are still seeing daily announcements of new product withdrawals by retailers across Europe.

Small and mid-sized manufacturers are optimistic about revenues as spring approaches, and plan to retain or even grow their labor forces, according to buying consortium Prime Advantage's 11th semi-annual Group Outlook Survey.