Our business priority is to work with our external component suppliers, supporting their efforts to rebuild the supply chain as quickly as possible.

FORBES: Seagate Q1 EPS Tops Ests; Sees Big Impact From Thai Floods

"The police have advised us that their spend on external forensic suppliers will continue to fall over the next few years as forces seek to maximise efficiencies in this area, " he said.

BBC: Forensic Science Service to be wound up

In addition, supplier managers can layer Google Alerts into Chatter feeds in order to track news alerts for key suppliers and any external news feeds relating to those suppliers.

FORBES: Written by Jon Bovit

This McKinsey Quarterly report focuses on three main categories or areas of application: Internal purposes, Customer-related purposes, and Working with External partners and suppliers.

FORBES: McKinsey's New Survey Finds Collaborative Technologies Can Improve Corporate Performance

CFOs will be pitching themselves and their companies not just to banks, tax authorities and external auditor but also customers, suppliers, supply chain partners and so on.

FORBES: Your CFO Needs a Facebook Page

"Bringing in an external person has allowed staff and outside suppliers to speak plainly and many of the messages being conveyed are uncomfortable and challenging ones, " he said.

BBC: Staff views 'challenging' for S4C after external review

"We've always had the philosophy that we should build vehicles where they are sold, so it makes sense to have suppliers close to your manufacturing operations, " says Mike Goss, external affairs manager for Toyota's engineering and manufacturing division in North America.

FORBES: Outsourcing--To America

Today small mobile external storage devices with storage capacity of up to 2.5 TB are available from suppliers such as Western Digital.

FORBES: Is 64 GB Big Enough -- Why Tablet Computers May Need More Storage?