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Business Strategy Alignment: Page 448

Collaborative Purchasing Is an Idea Whose Time Is Now

As businesses and governments implement cost-cutting and other efficiencies to help them recover from the deep recession, now is the time to consider collaborative purchasing as both a short- and long-term strategy to cut costs.

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Survey Suggests There Is Need for 'Mobile Wallets' and Services Targeted at Retail

Fifty-three percent of industry leaders believe that improving customers' retail experience would be essential to creating a successful mobile payments scheme, according to survey by SAP. The GSMA Mobile World Congress survey is aimed at addressing top issues facing mobile commerce service providers and reflects the sentiments of mobile operators, fixed telecommunication providers, over-the-top (OTT) players and other global mobile industry executives.

Supply Chain Optimization to Help Manufacturers Targeting 1.5-Percent Cost Reduction in 2013

U.S. manufacturers are targeting an aggressive 1.5-percent reduction in cost of goods sold for 2013 in an effort to drive margin growth, according to a new study from The Hackett Group. With GDP growth stabilizing in major regions of the world, manufacturers are expecting reduced sales forecast uncertainty, enabling them to plan supply requirements and manufacturing capacity with far greater confidence, the study found.

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Horizontal Collaboration and its Impact on Transportation, Sustainability, Service and Profits

Analyst Insight: Lately, activity in horizontal collaboration has increased. Although this is still not a scalable practice, the number of studies and pilot projects are growing. While many variations of collaboration exist, all significantly impact transportation management. - Bill Loftis, Senior Principal, Tompkins International

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Balancing the Supplier Relationship

Analyst Insight: In recent years, due to the changing and challenging global economy, there has been much talk about the need to balance natural competitive pressures with collaborative engagement across the supply base. The trick, of course, is how to do both things - competition and collaboration - effectively. I believe it starts with trust. - Kate Vitasek, faculty, University of Tennessee's Center for Executive Education, and Founder, Supply Chain Visions

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Rethinking Supplier Relationship Management

Analyst Insight: The increasingly hyper-competitive supply chain landscape requires a reassessment of "old" supplier relationships and a paradigm shift. Executives are scrutinizing old business practices, especially those related to supplier management. Manufacturers are reassessing outsourcing engagements and bringing many of them back in-house (termed "backsourcing" or "reshoring") given that many of the original reasons for outsourcing have changed. Increased supplier segmentation will force a reassessment of supplier governance, with leading companies having segmented supplier management strategies. - Nada R. Sanders, Professor of Supply Chain Management and Iacocca Chair, Lehigh University

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Anti-counterfeiting Strategies at the Source and for End Products

Undoubtedly businesses need to guard their end products against counterfeiting to protect their profits, their brands, their customers, and the financial health of their businesses. But fighting counterfeits cannot be fully effective without guarding supply sources - the materials and components used to manufacture the end products.

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Maersk to Halt Asia-U.S. East Coast Transit Through Panama Canal

Maersk Line, the world's biggest container shipping company, will stop plying through the Panama Canal to move goods from Asia to the U.S. east coast as bigger ships help the company move it profitably through Suez Canal.

Want to Achieve Compliance? Make it Easy and Worthwhile for the End User

Analyst Insight: Spend under management and compliance rates are considered key metrics to measure the success of almost any spend management program. Companies that try to achieve those by fiat alone will invariably fall short of their goals. Purchasing organizations are much more likely to succeed if they provide tools and systems that actually make the lives of their business users (the ones who make the purchase decisions) easier, rather than simply piling on more administrative work for the end user. - Bill McBeath, Chief Research Officer, ChainLink Research

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China Export Rates Show Signs of Global Demand Improvement

China's exports surged more than expected in February in a possible sign of stronger global demand. Exports leaped 21.8 percent, well ahead of analysts' expectations of single-digit growth as companies shut down for the Lunar New Year holiday.

Supply Chain Sector 'Needs Global Approach'

The global supply chain management industry is "in flux and changing", requiring a more sophisticated approach to managing the alignment of supply and demand, says Hamish Brewer, CEO of US-based supply chain management solutions group JDA Software.

IATA Announces Global Air Cargo Volume Increases

Statistics show a stabilization of airfreight markets on the back of encouraging growth towards the end of 2012. Compared to the previous year, the International Air Transport Association's (IATA) latest global airfreight demand statistics show demand for airfreight was "apparently very strong" at the start of this January with a rise of 5.0 percent.

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