U.S. retail and consumer merger & acquisition (M&A) activity during the first quarter of 2013 was defined by six multibillion-dollar transactions, including one of the largest consumer products deals in history, and alternative deal structures employed to achieve strategic objectives, according to PwC's U.S. retail and consumer deals insights Q1 2013 report.

United Airlines is launching a Sustainable Supply Chain (SSC) initiative in an effort to better understand the environmental performance of its suppliers and deepen relationships with its key supply chain partners.

Automotive suppliers are struggling to keep up with increased production, according to a new survey, raising serious concerns among purchasing executives.

The many operational differences between domestic and international transportation has historically meant separate and distinct management of these two sectors. Research shows that today's shippers, however, believe there are efficiencies to be gained by managing both domains on a single platform.

Supply chain is the largest expense for any product company and generally accounts for 60 percent to 90 percent of all costs. Controlling such a substantial expense demands continuous performance improvement and high operational efficiency. Research suggests the existence of a statistically significant relationship between analytical capabilities and supply chain performance. In other words, data analysis can assist in controlling supply chain costs. Further, an analysis of 310 companies from different industries in the USA, Europe, Canada, Brazil and China indicates that analytics of the supply chain plan has the second-biggest influence on supply chain performance.

As tainted-food scandals go, it wasn't so bad. The discovery early this year of unlabeled horse meat in European food products wasn't for the most part a safety issue. It was a violation of cultural norms, to be sure, as well as a truth-in-packaging problem. Most of all, it was a supply-chain failure.