A new research study, “The 2008 State of the Market in Supply Chain Finance,” benchmarks the trends in supply chain finance (SCF) over the past 15 months and shows that there has been a slight increase in practical activity in SCF compared to 2006. The report, announced by Aberdeen notes that despite the general awareness among corporate professionals that SCF holds a promise of savings and improved financial supply chain efficiencies, there is still a lack of best practice examples and guidelines for the corporate community to follow to improve SCF practices.

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Global supply chains faced their fair share of new and existing challenges in 2007. While improving both cost efficiencies and customer-service levels remained top of mind for supply chain executives, they are now chartered with enabling new business priorities, such as support for growth through more rapid innovation, increased flexibility to respond to demand variations, and sustainability and environmental needs.

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To plan ahead, one must first look back, take stock, and then try to peer over the horizon. Senior executives around the world are busy doing just that as they update their company’s strategic and operating plans for 2008 and beyond.

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Thinking about adding cross docking to your operation? A materials handling engineer explains what changes you’ll need to make.

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Federal records show at least 628 recalls so far this year, and another 941 in 2006. Globalization accounts for some of this surge. Many U.S. companies depend on overseas production, where quality controls are difficult to monitor.

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Maersk Logistics announced the global launch of a new carbon footprint reduction service. The new offering – the SupplyChain CarbonCheck™ - is a consulting service aimed at supporting companies in reducing carbon emissions from their supply chains. The service is the first of its kind developed by a logistics provider specifically to address global supply chains.

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The roles logistics and supply chains play in a corporate environment is one which cuts “across the grain” and ultimately plays a large role in customer satisfaction, which is the leading indicator of a company’s success, according to Carly Fiorina, former chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard.

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It is getting harder for people in the real economy to ignore the events on the world’s capital markets. Stock and corporate bond markets in the US and around the world, have suffered big falls in value as a result of the so called ‘liquidity crisis’ that has affected much of the debt market in the US.

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AMR Research Inc. asked 100 companies what was their greatest supply chain risk. While conventional logic suggested supply disruption would be the high risk factor, the companies pointed to increasing demand error as the greatest risk.

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Make no mistake; the customer is at the epicenter of the supply chain continuum of strategy and process.

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