There are two major challenges that companies face today in forecasting, says Bob Leonard, vice president of sales with Forecast Pro. One is the push to drive down to more detail, including smaller time buckets. The other is the need to treat forecasting as an analytical task, instead of just clerical work.

SAP America, the U.S.-based subsidiary of Germany's SAP AG, has agreed to acquire Ariba, the software vendor specializing in procurement and business-to-business commerce.

The demand for vendor-managed inventory programs in warehouses behaves "as a pendulum swinging back and forth between supplier and retailer," says John Mayer, vice president of sales with Park City Group. Over the last six to 12 months, he says, it has swung back in the direction of favoring VMI. Mayer has seen particular interest in the technique in the grocery industry.

Downstream demand signals have been available in the retail world for some time now, but it has taken a while for suppliers to take full advantage of them. Mark Kremblewski, global business expert in demand planning with Procter & Gamble, likens the situation to the mining industry, which trades in deposits of both high- and low-grade ore. The latter type is more plentiful, but it's the first that offers the biggest payback from a better use of demand data in unpredictable situations.

Agentrics NeoGrid, a vendor of products for supply-chain synchronization, has created the NeoGrid Portal. The new collaboration tool integrates existing systems within a company, creating a single point of access for managing the entire network of a client's supply chain.

CombineNet Inc., a provider of strategic-sourcing systems for global supply chains, has developed new capabilities which allow procurement and sourcing managers to manage electronic sourcing events in a single platform.

SAP AG has introduced a series of mobile applications for business users and consumers. The new tools provide real-time access to human resources, finance, sales and mobile commerce functions.

Terra Technology has added to its Demand Sensing product suite with the introduction of a Long-Term Demand Sensing (LDS) application.

People, processes and technology are the three key areas where companies are experiencing "pain points" in their forecasting efforts, says Eric Ball, solutions manager with Avercast LLC. The people side is especially vital, given the trend within many companies of "trying to do more with less." Too often businesses rely on a new piece of technology to improve their forecasting, ignoring the need for humans to run the system. "Coupled with budget cutbacks left and right, developing personnel is a tremendous issue," he says.

Briggs Healthcare develops and markets products that are designed to improve clinical outcomes and reduce operating costs for more than 50,000 customers in the senior care, home care, acute care, physician and retail markets. "Having the right product at the right place and time and at the lowest cost is very important to us," says Brad Mueller, vice president of supply chain solutions.