Planning for a pickup in sales, some small manufacturers borrowed money from their larger counterparts to ramp up production. Now, a growing number can't pay for the investments as their forecasts aren't panning out, with energy-related companies being among the hardest hit.
Despite organizations' best efforts to secure intellectual property and other sensitive information, limited progress has been made in effectively managing information risk in the supply chain.
Quality management systems are at the core of every set of critical business processes, and essential among these are anti-counterfeit strategies. Recently, industry headlines have been replete with analyst and government reports documenting the pervasiveness of counterfeit product in supply chains. Rather than a new problem though, counterfeit criminal activity is as old as business itself, and with this history comes an equally long history of anti-counterfeit strategies and risk management practices.
Analyst Insight: Ditching spreadsheet programs and stand-alone supply chain solutions for integrated software solutions is key to increasing visibility throughout the supply chain. By improving visibility, supply chain leaders can further optimize inventory and improve forecasting abilities, as well as increase the business's ability to react to disaster within the supply chain - a top priority for many executives. - Michael Koploy, ERP analyst, Software Advice