Analyst Insight: Don't be fooled by the dismal lack of progress in government venues on climate-change agreements or environmental legislation. The smartest companies are already pushing the frontier to bigger and bolder green agendas to gain competitive advantage, with the added benefit of enhancing their reputations for true corporate responsibility.

Analyst Insight: The current advantaged freight rates in LTL/Truckload modes that most companies have secured during the down economy will not last. Tomorrow's leaders cannot rest and must begin to embrace collaboration tools and technology to support process improvements around the linkage of key partners both internally and externally and to embrace integration as the key to process improvement and transformation.

Analyst Insight: 2009 was filled with mergers and acquisitions led by mega mergers. During this time, the definition of "pharmaceutical company" evolved, as the big players began morphing into global health care providers. As the evolution continues, processes for integrating multinational supply chains, new product lines, and rationalizing LSP contracts will challenge even the most capable and visionary supply chain executives.

Analyst Insight: The recent economic turmoil has pulled into sharp focus the issue of how to manage increasingly volatile supply chains. Through late 2008 and 2009, many companies simply panicked and aggressively cut both production and productive assets. These companies are beginning to pay for those aggressive cuts as demand is now starting to increase -- straining diminished capabilities. For 2010, we offer guidance on how companies can get supply chains back in balance and get sales and operations planning right.

Analyst Insight: In Aberdeen's Supply Chain Executive's Agenda 2009 study, the following top market pressures were reported by the process industry respondents: economic and financial volatility, rising supply chain management costs, escalating customer service demands, and rising business complexity of managing an increasingly global business network. Process industry firms have a number of differences in the way they manage their manufacturing and supply chains and are now increasing their focus on supply chain performance.