Analyst Insight: Companies spent over $400bn on external management consultants in 2013 with a majority on strategy development and implementation. This figure shows companies struggle to develop and retain strategy as a skill in the talent toolbox. As a pioneer of process engineering and continuous improvement, supply chain has already proven to be an organization that can break complex problems down into simple, repeatable steps. It's now our turn to do the same with strategy. – Matt Davis, SVP Research at SCM World

The food industry has a lot on its plate these days.

We've heard it before: chief procurement officers aren't just cost-cutters. They're contributing real value to the organization. But is that really true?

A company's reputation rests on much more than the quality of the products that it makes.

With the Jan. 1 U.S. Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) lot-level traceability deadline now behind us, many pharmaceutical companies are turning their attention to full drug serialization. DSCSA requires that manufacturers mark packages with a product identifier, serial number, lot number, and expiration date by 2017. In that period, highly regulated packaging and distribution processes must be changed; physical equipment must be procured and operationalized; enterprise-wide IT must be implemented; and end-to-end serialization testing with supply chain partners must take place well in advance of the deadline to allow time for any necessary adjustments. Given these multi-faceted complexities, three years is an aggressive implementation time frame.