Analyst Insight: Today more than ever, logistics professionals are at the forefront of designing new transportation and distribution solutions to support ever-changing fulfillment requirements. In today's competitive B2B and B2C markets, logistics is feeling the pressure of responding to changing demand patterns, shorter lead times, and smaller orders. Responding to today's customer-driven demands requires much more agile solutions versus traditional logistics networks. - Valerie Bonebrake, senior vice president, Tompkins International

Analyst Insight: The term supply-chain visibility means different things to different folks. Interestingly, it's something that everyone knows they need more of, but very few organizations have a handle on. This will change rapidly between now and 2020. Supply-chain visibility is having an increasing impact on customer relationships and buying decisions. - Bryan Nella, senior director of corporate communications, GT Nexus

Analyst Insight: Full supply-chain visibility has been a top three goal of supply-chain managers for more than a decade. The ability to see your inventory, customers' orders, and financial transactions, as they move through every node in the supply chain is paramount. This enables opportunities to optimize inventory position, route shipments more efficiently, truly collaborate - not just cooperate - and communicate with customers to provide world-class service. - David Meyers, principal, Tompkins International

Analyst Insight: Industry disruptions - whether caused by economic strife, weather events, or labor disputes - seem to be becoming more common, and they are prompting many executives to rethink the design of their global supply chains. For years many companies have invested in solid-state supply chains built for cost efficiency. The problem is that these are premised on very defined paths-to-market that lack resiliency and make them susceptible to disruption. - Glen Goldbach and Ryan Hawk, principals, PwC

Analyst Insight: The retail industry might be the most impacted by digital disruptions, on top of the obvious turmoil retailers' face due to the rapid growth of e-commerce. Retailers also face all of the disruptions in the transportation industry, as retail has always been about moving merchandise from its point of origin into the hands of consumers. - Jim Tompkins, CEO, Tompkins International

Analyst Insight: Best-in-class organizations are tapping into the power of analytics to improve supply-chain performance and identify improvement opportunities. Organizations use analytics for scoring models for vendor performance, detailed demand forecasting, and safety stock recommendations, optimizing fulfillment logistics, creating predictive models of different failure conditions, inventory budget optimization, and many other supply-chain activities. Today’s complex supply chains require that leaders create a data-driven culture, both internally and externally with supply-chain partners. – Andrea Stroud, statistician, APQC

Analyst Insight: We have come a long way from the days where gut feel and years of industry knowledge ruled the day and drove critical decision-making. "Water Cooler Talk" seems a thing of the past, but to effectively work together, businesses must replace it with a new process. Face to face cross-functional team discussions are critical in helping teams learn to work together and communicate effectively. Welcome to sales and operations planning (S&OP). – M. Scott Moon, principal, Tompkins International