The unprecedented transformation of consumer demand is driving cost and complexity into the supply chain. Keeping up in today's fast-paced business environment is forcing mid-market companies to analyze and implement responsive supply chain strategies that meet market expectations while driving greater profitability to the business. Despite reshoring and in-house efforts, outsourcing remains a reality for many supply chains.

Matt Mills, senior program manager for global supply chain with EMC2, reveals how his company has developed an effective program for managing risk.

When focusing on measurable elements of a business, key performance indicators, or KPIs, are critical to evaluating efficiencies and effectiveness of a process, but they can be complex when involving a supply chain often composed of numerous organizations.

All the technology in the world won't protect you against the myriad of events that can severely disrupt a global supply chain.

Employment rules and regulations have failed to keep pace with innovation in the American workforce - especially with regard to the growing number of independent workers.

Lee Young, director of supplier quality with ThermoFisher Scientific, discusses how technology and business-process change have helped the company to tighten up its risk-management program.

The recall of a single food ingredient can have massive implications for manufacturers and retailers, ranging over multiple supply chains.

One of the long touted benefits of outsourcing was relief from the minutia involved in manufacturing, billing, service and more. As outsourcing took off, few worried about the loss of visibility into those functions because they weren't considered core competencies anyway. The prevailing logic was companies should focus on processes that made them unique and everything else should be off loaded to companies that excelled in each domain. In the supply chain, that meant long chains of components from various companies feeding into more complex components that were shipped to the top of the chain and assembled into the finished product.