In the late 1680s, a group of ship owners, merchants and ships' captains - in essence, the supply chain managers of the day - transformed global commerce by "inventing" business insurance. In 2015, the insurance industry will return the favor by supporting supply chain innovation through sharing the tools that insurers have depended on to predict and quantify risk. How and why (now) will that happen? And what do supply chain stakeholders need to do?

Today, businesses of all stripes are sowing the seeds of Big Data everywhere. And if we think Big Data is big, just think how that data multiplies and branches out when rooted in the multifaceted field of supply chain management.