The undisputed Holy Grail in healthcare supply chain management practice is essentially everything related to its effective clinical integration. It's about getting clinical professionals and supply chain professionals on the same page and/or out of their own way - to streamline the delivery of patient benefit.

News of Descartes Systems Group's acquisition of MacroPoint LLC hit me right in the middle of a research effort vetting several of the more notable players that dominate the exact same solution space. I walked into the project wondering why there hadn't been more M&A activity; more specifically, why the market's Transportation Management System (TMS) vendors seemed to have conceded all-things-track-and-trace-related to this booming group of upstart "supply chain visibility" solution providers.