PrimeRevenue Inc. has partnered with Propell, a Southern African provider of financial services, to offer supply-chain finance in Africa.

What is forecast value-add, and how can it be applied to organizations in a time of volatile and unpredictable demand? Eric Wilson, director of demand planning and S&OP with Tempur Sealy International, has some answers.

As businesses increasingly rely on external parties for critical services, they become more vulnerable to business interruptions. This is especially true when such businesses know little about their third-party vendors' resiliency and recovery capabilities, according to PwC US, which examined the effects that vendor resiliency, or lack thereof, can have on an organization's business continuity strategy.

The supply-chain professional should be intimately involved at every step of new-product development, says Jillian Alexander, founder and managing director of Conduit Consulting.

Large UK manufacturers lost more than £58m in 2013 following a raft of preventable supply chain issues, including firms' failures to deliver goods on time.

The most recent earnings for Dollar General and Dollar Tree were healthier than rival Family Dollar's, but each one missed Wall Street's estimates as the economy has begun to improve.

"Plan for every part" is a key concept that's helping companies do a better job of forecasting. Aaron Simms, vice president of global customer service operations with Molex, is joined by Jonathon Karelse, partner with NorthFind Partners, to discuss how Molex applies the fundamentals of PFEP to its demand-planning function.