As a culture of "bring your own device" takes hold in the business world, solutions providers face the challenge of ensuring that their applications work well on a variety of operating systems, says Mike Maris, senior director for transportation and logistics at Motorola Solutions.

The Supply Chain Risk Leadership Council was formed around 2005 by Cisco Systems Inc. It was created to bring together risk-management experts who could share best practices and bring process standardization to the way in which risks are identified in the global supply chain, according to John J. Brown, director of risk management with The Coca-Cola Co.

Optimizing transportation costs includes analyzing agreements, auditing invoices and assessing value-added processes, says John Haber, founder and CEO of Spend Management Experts. But it's also about identifying contract "gotchas" and "smoke-and-mirror" pricing.

AIOE was organized last year to bring together operations executives of consumer packaged goods companies in order to develop and share best practices in production operations, says Tom Egan, vice president of industry services at PMMI, which launched the Alliance.

In addition to professional programs, the Warehousing Education & Research Council now assesses members' processes so they know if they accord with industry best practices, says Michael Mikitka, CEO of WERC.

With sales of roughly half a billion dollars, Dorman Products is one of the world's leading manufacturers of automotive parts for the aftermarket, selling more than 100,000 distinct products. The company has experienced sharp growth over the past four years, says director of corporate forecasting Donald H. Mitchell. Recently, it saw the need to transform its demand-planning process, in order to create "a more transparent environment."

It's imperative today to build a pathway to agility in your enterprise, but how do you accomplish that? You can't be agile if you don't have control, says Dave Brooks, senior director, strategic business solutions, Software AG. And control comes with end-to-end visibility, not only in your company but in all levels of operations at each of your partners.

The notion that companies are having no trouble finding supply chain talent is "a misperception in the marketplace," says Jason Breault, managing director of LifeWork Search. Media reports of high unemployment levels don't take fully into account the white-collar sector, where more than a million jobs have been added. Unemployment in that area is down to 4 percent, which isn't far from the 2-percent figure that is considered full employment, Breault says.