No experience happens as often, grabs share of wallet, and stimulates the senses more than grocery shopping, finds PwC US in a new report titled Experience Radar 2013: Lessons from the U.S. Grocery Industry. The study, which is one in a series of customer-centric reports, measures the experiences of about 6,000 U.S. consumers across multiple industries.

It's no surprise that supply chains are growing in complexity as manufacturers continue to globalize in order to reduce costs and expand their market. With this shift, manufacturers need to take a new approach to managing their supply chains by finding ways to improve communication with suppliers, obtain early visibility into sourcing information and better mitigate supplier risk.

In 2005 Walmart made history when then-CEO Lee Scott announced a bold sustainability strategy that would impact every aspect of its business. Along the way business researchers from the University of South Carolina and the University of Arkansas were given unprecedented access to study the process. A three-year project has culminated into a series of case studies, available online, that will be used to teach business students and executives about sustainability and business development.

Big business could be saving millions of dollars per year - a full margin point or more - on their indirect spend: areas like IT, logistics, marketing, and energy that may not be a part of a business's core product, but have a big impact on the bottom line.