Global manufacturing companies say they have realized good results by adopting cloud applications, and they plan to accelerate cloud use dramatically by 2017 - especially in their manufacturing, engineering and operations groups. Some of the biggest benefits have come from lower IT costs, higher employee productivity, better data visibility and gains in process automation.
Technology is an invaluable asset for sourcing teams, but it's not the end-all and be-all. In fact, for many organizations, evaluating vendors and deploying procurement technology can quickly become a major headache due to a lack of differentiation, long implementation time-lines and steep learning curves. Even when implementation goes smoothly, many procurement departments find themselves in a precarious position following deployment - they have a new, powerful technology at their disposal, but not enough people or internal resources to fully take advantage of its benefits and functionality.
Challenge: A distributor of industrial equipment found itself saddled with siloed applications running in a fragmented IT environment that provided little visibility. Productivity suffered as staff had to manually process, import and export data across multiple systems, and a lack of real-time client information was causing needless delays and lost opportunities for sales and customer service.
Nearly a third (31 percent) of UK online shoppers shopped elsewhere as a result of encountering minimum order thresholds, according to the JDA/Centiro Customer Pulse 2016 Report conducted by YouGov.
The growth of e-commerce may be slowing, as a majority of U.S. shoppers say they don't plan to increase their online spending over the next three years, a new report found.
The dry bulk shipping industry may not emerge from a protracted downturn for another two years and some smaller firms will be squeezed out, the chairman of France's Louis Dreyfus Armateurs.
By using Internet of Things (IoT) data to predict machine failures, companies can reduce costly inventory stock while improving their ability to meet service levels, according to a joint research project of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and managed services provider OnProcess Technology.
The latest supply-chain news, analysis, trends and tools for executives in the consumer packaged goods industry. Learn how consumer packaged goods companies and their suppliers around the world are managing the flow of products across all channels of the enterprise. Experts sound off on forecasting and demand planning, supply-chain visibility, logistics outsourcing, inventory optimization, transportation management, warehouse management, supply-chain security, corporate social responsibility and more.
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