Raul Corella, vice president of worldwide supply chain operations, stresses the importance of collaboration with key suppliers, understanding best practices and maintaining strict performance metrics - all with an eye toward continuous improvement.

It's great to have accurate supply-chain data within a given department. But companies must be able to communicate and collaborate across discrete business functions, as well as with outside suppliers. Sanjay Ravi, worldwide managing director of high tech & electronics industry at Microsoft, shows how it can be done.