Integration is always a hot topic for the supply chain. It's a powerful tool to improve profitability by reducing costs. Like a lot of ideas, though, its effectiveness depends quite a bit on context. What works best for a small manufacturer may be considerably different than what does the trick for a large retailer. The pressure for profits may be the similar but there’s a huge difference in scale.

A few months back, we slogged through predictions for trends that would affect businesses in 2013. Many or most of them have already impacted us, particularly those related to mobile technology and the cloud. But the most powerful of all didn't appear on many lists and seems to be getting traction in the business and technology press a bit ahead of the hype curve.