Industry 4.0 is more than just a flashy catchphrase. A confluence of trends and technologies promises to reshape the way things are made.

What would it take for manufacturing businesses to operate like the best online retailers? How can such companies turn orders around in a day, deliver them with greater customization, and replenish stocks seamlessly? These aren't idle questions for the top teams of manufacturers, because customers, across both B2C and B2B markets, are more fickle now; service demands are steadily notching upward; and economic volatility shows no sign of abating. Supply operations often struggle to keep pace, as many aren't sufficiently agile to capture fleeting upside opportunities or to mitigate fast-moving risks.

After years of stagnant activity, mergers and acquisitions surged in 2014, with the announcement of more than 7,500 deals with a combined value exceeding $3.5tr. That's an increase of more than 7 percent by number and more than 25 percent by value compared with 2013. While that volume hasn't yet reached the high of nearly 10,000 deals set in 2007, a new wave of activity is clearly under way.

A decade or so ago, companies in industrial manufacturing and other process industries did not need to focus on resource productivity. If they gave any attention to the topic, it was to undertake small, incremental measures with the hope of generating marginal improvements. That period is over. Today, there is no debate: resource productivity must be among the top priorities - if not the top priority - of industrial manufacturers around the world.

The growing demand for products that are "good enough" and competitively priced has pushed medical-product manufacturers to develop strategies to attract and retain this new segment of customers.

Until recently, China's internet economy was consumer driven. The country leads the world in the number of internet users, and Chinese enterprises deploy sophisticated e-commerce strategies. The same companies, though, have lagged behind the United States and other developed nations in using the internet to run key aspects of their businesses. That's changing.

In recent decades, companies in sectors from automotive and high-tech to retail and consumer packaged goods have come to realize that their supply chain is much more than the cost of getting products into customers' hands. These companies understand that it is the supply chain that translates corporate strategy into day-to-day interactions both within and beyond the organization. Ultimately, it is the supply chain that satisfies or disappoints their customers.

The exact moment when computers got better than people at human tasks arrived in 2011, according to data scientist Jeremy Howard, at an otherwise inconsequential machine-learning competition in Germany.