Nothing gets software vendors more excited than new government regulations. Sarbanes-Oxley was a boon to enterprise software companies a few years ago. It allowed them to walk down the hall from the CIO's office and talk to the chief financial officer, the person who controls the company's purse strings. Similarly, TMS vendors welcomed the new Hours of Service regulations when they first went into effect in 2003. It was part of the "perfect storm" shippers and carriers were facing at the time (along with rising fuel costs and capacity constraints) that served as a catalyst for TMS sales. The latest regulation that has vendors seeing dollar signs is the Importer Security Filing (ISF) rule, better known to folks in the industry as "10+2."

Because of margin and market growth pressures, life sciences supply chains are more dynamic than ever before. In 2009, best practice companies will continue to put in place data analysis processes and "human knowledge" collection procedures to spot red flags and safety risks in their end-to-end supply chains.

Certainly we expect the new president to favor legislation protecting consumers as well as incentives to reduce job losses to low-cost manufacturing countries. But it is not clear how much of an effect he will be able to have, at least in the short term. We do expect to see significant investments in infrastructure/public works projects and a continuation, for now, of recent defense spending levels.

With new crises seemingly emerging weekly, risk management has taken on a new urgency. Leading companies recognize the importance of a solid supply chain risk discipline, but grapple with scope, ownership, metrics, and ties to other types of strategic and operational risks facing the business.

The election of Barack Obama in the United States, the repercussions of the global "financial bailout" and a potential increase in environmental regulations will affect supply chain operations at multiple levels. The ability to quickly monitor and absorb these changes in supply chain structures will be the main agenda for 2009.