A potential labor strike by longshoremen along the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts at the end of the year could have devastating economic consequences as inventory depletion, rerouting, hoarding, and price speculation ripple through supply chains of global companies, according to a report from the Marsh research firm.
Import cargo volume at the nation's major retail container ports is expected to increase 3.9 percent in December despite a strike that closed the nation's largest port complex for the first few days of the month, but retailers are keeping a close watch on a possible strike on the East Coast and Gulf Coast, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released today by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.
PartnerShip LLC, a provider of services to small and medium-sized businesses, is now offering a guarantee in support of its tradeshow shipping service.
Two things you should never do on an empty stomach: shop for groceries, and predict the future. In the case of the latter, that must be a guiding principle of the San Francisco Roundtable of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals, which takes care to feed attendees before presenting its annual, much-anticipated predictions for the coming year and beyond.
The experience of a Houston-area couple indicates that maddeningly frustrating experiences with online shopping continue, and to the detriment of retailers.
Internet service providers and trade groups for movies and music are partnering in the latest effort to curb online copyright infringement. Under the "six strikes" plan, users who share copyrighted material online will face an escalating series of warnings that could eventually result in the slowing of their internet speeds.
ChainLink Research CEO Ann Grackin will discuss how innovative companies are using excellence in B2B integration as a competitive advantage, particularly in service-based industries, in a webinar scheduled for 12 p.m. EST, Dec. 11, 2012.
The reshoring of manufactured goods from Asia to North America is bound to take some import business away from U.S. ports. But there are other developing threats to the continued dominance of gateways like Los Angeles-Long Beach - specifically, a couple of upstarts to the north and south.
The average size of each pharmaceutical theft incident in U.S. so far in 2012 has been about $120,000. Compare that to just four years ago, in 2009, when the average incident resulted in losses of about $4m. That is an astonishing reduction of more than 30 times in just four years. Furthermore, the number of incidents during the same period has been cut in half. What is the cause of this phenomenal success?