"Without big data analytics, companies are blind and deaf, wandering out onto the web like deer on a freeway," wrote Geoffrey Moore, author of Crossing the Chasm. Certainly, many CFOs, and not just those with web-based businesses, would wholeheartedly agree: Data are the sensory information produced by a business that has its eyes and ears on operations and customers.

Switzerland, Austria and Japan were top performers in a ranking of supply chain resilience.