Billions to Save

InformationWeek has report on the current status of the supply chains in the business world -- and despite the efficiencies wrung from the re-engineering efforts of the last decade or so, there's still more to be gained, and lots more work to be done. Last year alone, $5 billion was spent on supply chain technologies -- and growth is expected towards $7 billion by 2008. The NIST estimates that a cost of 1.25% of total value of shipment is due just to lack of standards or interoperatabiity. Groups such as ebXML and RosettaNet are working to implement standard processes -- while standards may not be a competitve advantage, one thing for sure that they do is, reduce costs.