Analyst Insight: The titans of business, Amazon and Walmart, are doing an awesome job of growing their companies and transforming the way the marketplace functions. They're innovating supply chain operations and how they are responding to the needs of the customer. They're creating tremendous disruptions that are forcing everyone to play catch up. Lastly, they are on the offensive. They are creating benefits for their customers at such a rate that all other companies are playing at a disadvantage. - Jim Tompkins, CEO, Tompkins International

Analyst Insight: For retail, what's on the supply chain horizon isn't one-dimensional, purely best practice, absolutely the optimum, but rather a continuum of distinct models working within several different environments. From a supply chain vantage point, the best retailers are those who orchestrate supplier resources with their own, resulting in agility and responsiveness to changing situations and differing customer needs. - Robert Sabath, Principal Essentialist SCM, Trissential

Analyst Insight: Tracking supply chain metrics can help organizations identify opportunities for quality and performance improvement. However, identification is half the battle; organizations must adopt practices that can lead to improvement. One of these practices is the development of close relationships with key suppliers and service providers. Through these relationships, organizations can realize improvements in both performance and quality. - Becky Partida, Research Specialist, APQC

Analyst Insight: Supply chain complexity and turmoil is on the rise due to growing global markets, increasing customer expectations, rising costs and more intense competitive pressures. Progressive companies understand that supply chain performance has a significant impact on the bottom line and shareholder value, and they must reinvent their supply chain networks on a regular basis in order to remain competitive. However, the traditional way of designing supply chain networks with a focus on cost optimization is giving way to more progressive thinking. - John Spain, Executive Vice President, Tompkins International

Analyst Insight: Network planning suffers from an abundance of inappropriate technology, coupled with far too little pragmatic, common sense. Everyone is familiar with the optimization tools that are routinely applied; all are based on long-term shipment forecasts by SKU, by zip code or even finer measurement. Now wait a minute! We can't even forecast next month's demand; how in the world can we forecast demand detail five years in the future? The skills and skepticism of the millennials just may have the solution. - Robert Sabath, Principal Essentialist SCM, Trissential

Analyst Insight: When asked why he robbed banks, Slick Willy answered, "Because that's where the money is!" Where's the money in your company? Capital for new projects is a real challenge, with an appropriation process that is complex, political and arduous, commanding the attention and scrutiny of the executive committee. Yet, planners and schedulers armed with custom spreadsheets routinely make million-dollar working capital decisions every day! - Rich Sherman, Principal Essentialist, Trissential