In today's business world, technology has opened the door to reaching and attaining a whole new customer base. The development of e-commerce has presented distributors with the opportunity to target not only businesses but also the individual consumer, converging the B2B and B2C markets.

Transportation capacity problems have been a volatile issue over the past 20 years or so. A thorough analysis provided by the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals, in its "State of Logistics" report, indicates that by 2017, shippers in the U.S. will face shortages in trucking resources again, predominantly a trucker shortage, in the near future due to an array of developments that may cause shippers to find loads left on the ground, shipping costs rapidly escalating, and shrinking profit margins that stun stakeholders.

Almost 25 years after the rise of warehouse management solutions to drive increased customer service levels, there still remain a significant number of Tier 1 distribution-intensive companies that continue to use manual processes to support a growing demand on the warehouse.

Data from the Reshoring Initiative shows it's primarily southern U.S. states that are seeing the benefits of manufacturing companies returning production from overseas.

For states in the northern half of the country, particularly the Midwest and Northeast, tough winters are expected. Prolonged freezing temperatures and heavy snowfalls rarely catch anyone off guard in those regions.