Analyst Insight: Retail is in a dramatic transformative phase. Consumers' multichannel access and shopping and web commerce vs. in-store shopping have retailers experimenting with many new approaches and technologies. Multi-merged channel expectations put fulfillment front and center as a major concern - no more relegating supply chain to the backwaters of retail management! - Ann Grackin, CEO, ChainLink Research

The English language is full of potentially polarizing statements. But few are more likely to inspire mixed feelings among DC professionals than some facsimile of this: "Our facility is getting a labor management system."

Analyst Insight: While much has been written about demand driven, daily demand variability drives operations crazy. Most current inventory planning and optimization applications are disconnected from daily reality resulting in operations relying on custom spreadsheets and tribal knowledge to reconcile the gaps between plan and actual. In addition, the inventory planning applications are often disconnected from the optimization applications (if implemented at all), further exacerbating the operations conundrum. - Rich Sherman, Supply Chain Discipline Expert at Trissential

Analyst Insight: The worldwide logistics market has experienced a growth rate of approximately 7 percent annually, which is notable given logistics costs average about 12 percent of total revenues globally. Of this total, an average of 46 percent is spent through outsourced relationships, which drove total spend in North America alone to $134bn in 2011. Given this growth and the increasing complexities of global trade, selecting the appropriate services to outsource and structure mutually beneficial relationships with logistics providers is critical. - Aaron Pernat, Senior Manager, and Gary Allen, Executive Director, both in Ernst & Young's Supply Chain Advisory Practice

It seems like a cruel joke. At the same time we hear about the return of manufacturing jobs from Asia to the U.S., we are inundated with stories about the growth of robotics, which threatens to take away those very jobs for good.

Analyst Insight: The talk in outsource circles these days continues to revolve around the need for bigger and better collaboration and innovation. Some articles talk about the end of outsourcing, but what they mean - and a better way to put it - is to think about the end of outsourcing relationships as we know them. - Kate Vitasek, faculty, University of Tennessee's Center for Executive Education. and Founder, Supply Chain Visions