Trends

Amazon plans to box and ship products it expects customers to buy preemptively, based on previous searches and purchases, wish lists, and how long the user’s cursor hovers over an item online. The company may even go so far as to load products onto trucks and have them “speculatively shipped to a physical address” without having a full addressee.

Globalization has been a major industrial trend in which low labour costs have driven companies to set up their production sites in low cost countries, thus creating growth of cargo shipping between continents. The balance between transportation and labour cost may change. A new trend in the future may be globalization, where the global business is supported by local 3D production that optimizes the business through speed, quality or personalization.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks 2014 report finds income disparity the most likely risk to cause an impact on a global scale in the next decade. Other risks of significant concern include extreme weather events, unemployment and fiscal crises. The report analyses 31 global risks and includes special in-depth investigations into youth unemployment, digital disintegration and geopolitical risks.

View highlighted excerpts from the EBN live chat on The Future of Direct Procurement, along with Pierre Mitchell, chief research officer at Spend Matters, and host Hailey Lynn McKeefry, managing editor of EBNOnline.

The goal of this article is not to take a strong stance on if or when the supply chain talent storm will occur; like the weather, that is hard to predict. Rather, consider this paper a “storm warning.”

Economy, fuel prices, regulations, trucking freight, truckload capacity, intermodal - there's optimism and pessimism ahead for everyone.

When the word "collaboration" is substituted for "social," we can see that B2B organizations made use of these technologies long before the word "social" came into vogue. Most supply chain planning (SCP) systems today are not social. Rather, they are oriented around the job of an individual planner, who works with a user interface that strongly resembles an Excel spreadsheet.

Today’s supply chains — stretched by globalization, outsourcing, and the rapid proliferation of SKUs and product configurations — are exceedingly complex. They’re also exceedingly hard to manage. Some companies may have made the supply chain an area of strategic focus (Walmart and Zara in retail; P&G and Unilever in consumer product goods; Apple in consumer electronics), but even the most successful of them are now under intense new pressure to cut costs further: to do more with even less.

The Rapid Packing Container, a new design for the cardboard box invented by two current students at the Albert Nerken School of Engineering, claim the new box design will “revolutionize the cardboard packing industry” as it is more environmentally-friendly, quicker to pack, and easier to open, store and recycle.

Big Data has much to offer the world of logistics. Sophisticated data analytics can consolidate this traditionally fragmented sector, and these new capabilities put logistics providers in pole position as “search engines in the physical world”.

At this time of year, every publication comes out with a top 10 list, Eyefortransport (EFT) compiled a list last year for the first time and it made for interesting reading.

Walgreen, the largest drug retailing chain in the US, Alliance Boots and AmerisourceBergen signed a $400bn 10-year agreement that will create what Forbes magazine coined the “Earth’s Drugstore”. Not only will the agreement create “Earth’s Drugstore” but it appears it is set to create one of the largest and most influential global supply chains.

My predictions may be right, or they may be wrong, but one thing I think all will agree on is that 3D printing will make the supply chain more complex and more difficult to manage. The companies that succeed through this transition will be the ones that adapt early and leverage the tools they need in order to manage this more complex supply chain.

Here’s what analysts, supply chain pros, and a recent SCMR survey say customers want and expect from the leaders in the supply chain software space.

Why 3PL contract renewals tend to have a shorter contract length and thoughts from Robert Vallender, the Head of Logistics for Nestle.

Last mile delivery location options, the ability to manage global fulfillment via the cloud, the possibility of 24/7 delivery services and perhaps the end of the middleman as businesses gain more control over transportation and the sale of equipment are all included in a new mindset as more and more logistics startups are formed in order to meet needs that are not being met by traditional providers.

It’s not often that supply chain issues capture the wider public’s imagination. However, there is one innovation in recent years, 3D printing, which appears to make Star Trek science a stunning reality and for this reason has broken into the public’s consciousness.

Big Data or Real Time Data, business process management, running your supply chain - think marketing, consumers, vendor consolidation, social remains an enigma, what about mobile, eCommerce, risk management, and public perception.

Supply Chain Matters (SCM) speaks to Mark Patterson, Vice President - Innovation and Product Incubation at DHL Supply Chain, to review the five most important supply chain trends of 2013, and what they mean for companies going into 2014 and beyond.

New entrants in the market will rely heavily on a mix of hub-and-spoke network configurations as well as interlining between long-distance shipping routes using transshipments through the Caribbean Triangle.