November volumes indicate a drop in container traffic at retail container ports, according to the National Retail Federation and Global Insight.

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Outsourcing is not a new phenomenon for the Shipping and Logistics sector. Some of the biggest companies in this sector have used outsourcing in many of their key functions routinely. Although the core objectives which drove outsourcing haven’t changed over the years, what is new is that Shipping and logistics companies are now increasingly seeking to gain these benefits by outsourcing business processes which have been traditionally considered to be too core to be outsourced – much less offshored. This is just one amongst some of the key trends, which Infosys has researched, which are emerging from this domain.

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Tagsys, a maker of products utilizing radio frequency identification (RFID), has created a new “intelligent infrastructure” for RFID networks.

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Enterprises are widely experimenting with Web 2.0 tools and Service-Oriented technologies to expand the collaborative reach of the organization, according to the results of a pulse survey of more than 100 participants attending the Oracle OpenWorld conference in San Francisco. According to the survey conducted by Capgemini U.S LLC the market trend with the greatest impact on business is globalization (28%), followed by increased competition (26%), and compliance (19%).

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The global contract logistics market grew by just under 10% last year according to the latest report from Transport Intelligence, Global Contract Logistics 2007. The market was driven by growth in the Asia Pacific region, which overtook North America for the first time to become the world’s second largest market. Europe, the most mature market, experienced solid if unspectacular growth.

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Enterprise Resource Planning vendors such as SAP and Oracle are making inroads into the supply chain, transportation and logistics solutions market. According to John Fontanella, Vice President of research at AMR Research Inc., ERP vendors now claim about 50 percent of the supply chain technology market.

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Companies expect to gain many benefits from implementing Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology. Perhaps the one cited most often is lower supply chain costs, which result from the improved inventory visibility that the technology affords. But there’s another, often overlooked advantage that supply chain managers should know about: RFID technology can help them fulfill the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) if implemented and integrated properly. Conversely, RFID can complicate the already complex and costly internal mandates of SOX if the implementation is not approached the right way.

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Heineken owns over 115 breweries in more than 65 countries. In May 2007 the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration (CustomsNL) informed Rob Wessels, Customs Manager at Heineken, that by mid June 2007 the new Export Control System (ECS) would become effective for part of Heineken’s export, specifically the non-excise goods (i.e., soft drinks) that Heineken exports via the port of Antwerp, Belgium. A later phase (July 2009) would make ECS compulsory for all export. ECS is a European Union (EU)-wide system. Companies must submit export declarations to ECS for customs control purposes.

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CEVA Logistics, the global contract logistics and freight management group created from the merger of the former TNT Logistics and Eagle Global Logistics (EGL), is looking to achieve more than 60% total growth in annual revenue over the next three years with a view to hitting €10bn (US$13.5bn) in 2010. Profit-wise, the aim is to sustain a margin of about 5.5%.

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Profit before depreciation, etc. for the first nine months of 2007 increased in USD by 28% compared to the same period in 2006. Unchanged from the interim report of 29 August 2007, the total net profit for 2007 is expected to be in the order of 20% above the 2006 net result of USD 2.7 billion.
Nils S. Andersen, Maersk Group CEO, says:

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