Other than inventing the scale-based supply-chain-squeeze model of retail, which must go down as one of the great business innovations of all time, Wal-Mart is hardly known as a foresight-based player.
United Stationers, a multi-billion dollar wholesaler of office and janitorial supplies, has created a B2B digital edge by combining information and technology based services with its supplychain.
Barnes said the Cleveland-based business provides inventory management, technical sales and supplychain services for maintenance, repair, operating and production supplies.
Newer Cloud-based systems provide not just a better way for companies to buy and use sophisticated supplychain software quickly and economically, but they provide the only way companies can begin to orchestrate as collaborative networks.