The last two years have brought an explosion of cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) provided in long-term subscription or on-demand models. Both new application providers and traditional enterprise software license firms have provided new versions of their software and services to ensure a market presence in these sectors of the technology market (though there are still a few hold-outs that sell only on-premise licenses).

Retail is in a dramatic transformative phase. Consumers' multichannel access and shopping make multi/merged channel fulfillment the focus for retail. No more relegating supply chain to the backwaters of retail management!

ChainLink Research CEO Ann Grackin will discuss how innovative companies are using excellence in B2B integration as a competitive advantage, particularly in service-based industries, in a webinar scheduled for 12 p.m. EST, Dec. 11, 2012.

The average size of each pharmaceutical theft incident in U.S. so far in 2012 has been about $120,000. Compare that to just four years ago, in 2009, when the average incident resulted in losses of about $4m. That is an astonishing reduction of more than 30 times in just four years. Furthermore, the number of incidents during the same period has been cut in half. What is the cause of this phenomenal success?

Adoption of carton-level tagging - using temperature-sensing RFID for pharmaceuticals - could be nearing an inflection point, as was seen recently with item-level tagging in apparel. But tracking temperature-sensitive pharmaceuticals is very different from tracking apparel.

How much inventory and which items should a company hold, overall and at each stocking location (each DC, store, stockroom, salesperson's vehicle, service depot, etc.)? When to replenish and how many? To the uninitiated, these seem like relatively straightforward daily decisions. But they are anything but simple and can make the difference between a highly profitable vs. out-of-business company.

As work piles up in our in-boxes and on our desks, the question should occur-what important issues am I missing? It is an interesting fact that a high percentage of our critical work and the data we use to make decisions are still outside the operations systems we have-ERP, accounting, modeling and decision support.

In spite of several laws passed in the last decade, we have not begun to scratch the surface of addressing the cost of healthcare.

Attention is mounting by consumers, government, industry, and media to address the growing counterfeit challenges in the US.

Adoption of carton-level tagging using temperature-sensing RFID for pharmaceuticals could be nearing an inflection point, as was seen recently with item-level tagging in apparel. But tracking temperature-sensitive pharmaceuticals is very different from tracking apparel.