The latest spate of auto recalls came last month when auto giants Honda, Nissan, Toyota and Mazda were focused to recall more than 3.4 million vehicles as a result of faulty air bags originating from Takata Corp in Japan. Since the initial announcement, BMW has come forward with a related recall action of more than 200,000 of their cars.

Collaboration is the solution for just about every aspect of supply-chain management except one: cybersecurity. Then it becomes the problem.

U.S. legislation has compelled a stepped-up interest in preventing counterfeit electronic parts from slipping into the supply chain. It has also raised more questions than it has answered. For many dealing with the enormous task of tracking, reporting and resolving issues associated with potential counterfeit parts, there is a collective hope that 2013 will bring clearer guidance on what needs to be done by whom and when.

The recent revelation that the owner of an Algerian cargo ship whose crew was held by Somali pirates paid them $2.6m in ransom is yet another indication that the rewards these denizens reap for their illegal, life-threatening work remain a serious stumbling block to ending maritime organized crime, said William H. Watson, president and COO of AdvanFort Company, a maritime security solutions provider.

An unstable economy and the growing volume of global regulations are the biggest business threats, according to a recent poll of in-house legal counsel.

In Guangdong province, where nearly 30 percent of China's exports are made, women usually far outnumber men on labour-intensive production lines. Rural women are hired for their supposed docility, nimble fingers and attention to mind-numbing detail. But in recent years Guangdong's workforce has changed.

What if you weren't just delivering meat to stores for sale but doing something more disruptive - like selling 40-pound packages of raw meat out of the back of refrigerated trucks? What kind of bureaucratic fat would you have to cut through then?

Somebody wants your company's secrets. And there's an excellent chance that they'll succeed in getting them.