This is why they call Big Data big: IDC, a research firm, predicts that the Big Data market "” including technology and services "” will grow at a 31.7% compound annual rate through 2016, becoming a $23.7bn market by 2016.

A global research study by Oracle has found that brands could lose as much as 20 percent of their annual revenue due to poor customer service, with 95 percent of executives agreeing that delivering a great customer experience is critical to business results.

President Obama didn't mention the word "retail" a single time in his State of the Union address. But retailers could nonetheless be widely impacted by proposals put forth in the annual speech to Congress, ranging from promises to create jobs and grow the economy to a plan to increase the federal minimum wage that is drawing headlines this morning.

Is it a waste of time to make economic forecasts? Even the most respected prognosticators are wrong as often as they're right. And the most sweeping changes? Hardly anyone ever sees them coming.

For a new report on supply chain excellence, an assistant and I waded through spreadsheet after spreadsheet of data for the last three weeks and contrasted the progress of the high-tech, consumer products, food, pharmaceutical and industrial industries. The storyline of the report is that ONLY the high-tech industry is making progress on what I call the Supply Chain Effective Frontier - effectively balancing progress on growth, profitability, cycles and complexity. The rest of the industries are either stuck or moving backwards. Consumer packaged goods, food and chemical manufacturers are stuck and pharmaceutical and industrial companies are losing ground and moving backwards.

Labelmaster, a manufacturer and distributor of items for complying with regulations on the movement of hazardous materials, has added reusable crates to its product line.

UPS has launched of UPS Access Point, a network of convenience stores, petrol stations and newsagents which consumers purchasing goods on the web can choose for delivery and returns. It is starting with a network of 600 sites with 1,500 set to be in place in the United Kingdom by June 2013.