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Business Strategy Alignment: Page 380

Third-Party Logistics: Lean Needs to Extend Beyond the Four Walls For Success

Many companies unintentionally have created departmental silos within their organizations. Information and products go back and forth between the different functional areas, but the customer is often missing from the process. When lean supply chain strategies, which focus on eliminating waste, are implemented, once again the customer is often times left out. Instead of focusing on the client, the company focuses internally to improve processes. Research shows that undertaking a lean supply chain journey that extends outside the four walls of the organization significantly improves the customer experience, company productivity and the bottom line. - Eric Lail, VP, Continuous Improvement and Client Services, Transportation Insight

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Providers of Supply Chain Services Know Value of Innovation

Analyst Insight: Service providers are blending services across consulting, technology and outsourcing to deliver ongoing operational capabilities to supply chain organizations. Bundling multiple services for a client is not unusual or new. For at least the past five years, providers with multiple service lines have been presenting bundled services to clients. - Michael Dominy, Research Director, Gartner

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A Third of Manufacturers See Stronger Economy Over Next Six Months While Half Predict No Change

More than a third of manufacturing firms in the small and mid-sized business (SMB) sector expect the economy to strengthen in the coming six months, while nearly half expect it to remain the same, according to the results of the second annual Sage Manufacturing Survey announced by Sage North America. Respondents also anticipate an increase in orders, production and exports.

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As Cuba's Port of Mariel Becomes Major Hub, Will U.S. Miss Out on Trade Opportunities?

I was privileged to accompany the 2001 U.S. Logistics Leaders delegation to Cuba, and ended up being the expedition's recording secretary. The trip diary outlined our activities and contacts, and plunged into observations about supply chain and logistics conditions in the island nation, an inescapable force in the Caribbean Basin, a significant presence among islands it dwarfed, and with a population of some thirteen million. The trip record was published in The Journal of Business Logistics later that year.

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Survey Seeks Your Views on Business Challenges Facing Companies

Each year ChainLink Research conducts research to provide insights into the business challenges companies are confronting and what strategies and solutions they plan to use to address those challenges. This year is no different: your views are needed.

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Change is Inevitable; Growth is Optional

Analyst Insight: Combining supply chain analysis and consulting topics is more logical than you think. Best practice/market leading companies regularly use outside consultants. When you look at the roll of consultants' clients, it includes all the leading companies. Leaders know that to innovate, they have to 'break the rules" - extending beyond status quo. They know that analyzing and improving supply chain process performance requires full-time commitment and expertise - to look at processes from the outside in.

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New U.S. Economic Health Tracker Shows 153,000 Non-Farm Jobs Added in January

D&B announced the launch of its monthly U.S Economic Health Tracker, which provides a multidimensional perspective on the U.S. economy, with insights across key sectors of the U.S. economy, including small business health, total job growth, and overall U.S. business health.

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Notes From the Oracle Value Chain Summit

Some random themes and thoughts to emerge from Oracle Corp.'s Value Chain Summit in San Jose, Calif. last week:

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Overcoming Deadlock Through Trade Integration

After more than two decades of development, cross-strait economic and trade ties between Taiwan and the mainland are undergoing a transition. Likewise, China's economy has also entered a transitional phase.

Will Natural Gas Become the Main Fuel Powering Transportation?

Natural gas has started to challenge oil as the dominant transport fuel with companies building gas-powered ships and installing networks of service stations on water and land.

Recession - What Recession? Spending on Luxury Items Topped $1.8Tr Last Year

Consumers remain smitten by luxury. Their urge to splurge was revealed in a 2013 study by The Boston Consulting Group, which found that consumers spent an annual aggregate amount of more than $1.8tr worldwide on items the respondents defined as luxuries.

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Staging a Carbon-Neutral Winter Olympics

And you thought that sponsorships for the Olympics were all about consumer products and services. Meet the Official Carbon Partner of the Sochi Games.

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