The recent acquisition of GXS by Open Text earlier this month has ended the era of EDI VANs (Value Added Networks). Major corporations typically tend to run and manage their own B2B interchanges but rely on VANs for tail end connectivity.

This acquisition causes every company relying on VANs for B2B Integration to re-think their B2B strategy.

Here’s yet another reason to invest in end-to-end supply chain visibility: Up to 40 percent of supply chain disruptions are not with a direct supplier, according to the global supply chain product leader for Zurich Insurance Group, Nick Wildgoose.

Wildgoose gave a talk to the company’s Australian-based insurers recently, explaining that it’s time for insurers to take a closer look at how companies manage supply chain risk.

Supply chains account for such a large percent of a company’s value add and revenues, that the next logical step is to establish a supply chain analytics department, experts say.

“Supply chain, across industries, constitutes about 50-80% of the value add,” Kaveh Taghizadeh, vice president MESA SCM & Procurement at KPMG, told the Arabian Supply Chain. “Therefore, full understanding of the supply chain and managing it is a logical business requirement.”

We’re heading into one of the most challenging of the year for supply chain managers: The holiday shopping season.

Supply chain visibility, forecasts and product availability are the top three variables procurement leaders need to monitor if they want to keep supply chains running smoothly, advises MediaPost analyst Laurie Sullivan in a recent column.