Analyst Insight: Transportation management technology is the fastest-growing segment of the supply chain technology market. Firms that relied on third parties want to take more control. From global supply chains to adding more advanced services such as home delivery, companies need to improve logistics performance and costs, making this an active technology sector. - Ann Grackin, CEO, ChainLink

Analyst Insight: The growth of e-commerce, the evolution of consumer expectations, and the globalization of e-commerce have resulted in many changes in the requirements of retail supply chains. These changes demand that retail supply chains handle more volume, quicker, and around the world. Supply chains are at a crossroads to either constrain an organization’s success or to enable the organization’s profitable growth. - Jim Tompkins, CEO, Tompkins International

Analyst Insight: Global, web, mobile, catalogs and trunk shows are only a few of the channels by which we sell and buy today. Retailers are investing billions of dollars to upgrade their tech infrastructure as well as their fulfillment processes to respond to customers as well as threatening and clever competitors’ moves. But omnichannel is not just for retailers. - Ann Grackin, CEO, ChainLink Research

Analyst Insight: Not only is the supply chain market in the cloud growing, but a growing element in the portfolio is the supply chain network. Today, supply chain processes that call for collaboration such as transportation management, track and trace and procurement rely on the cloud to get the job done. But the supply chain network is a unique approach that facilitates complex multi-party supply chain processes and transactions. - Ann Grackin, CEO, ChainLink Research

As a vital part of the supply chain, today's warehouses need to be efficient, tightly integrated profit centers. Making this happen relies on the warehouse employees' efficiency as they go about shipping and receiving, fulfilling and picking orders, and doing inventory. All these functions rely on warehouse computer terminals that are designed for the job they are doing, whether that's a computer mounted on a forklift or a handheld tablet device. The problem is, sometimes the design of these terminals prevents workers from operating as efficiently as they otherwise could.