Winning your first government contract can be slow moving – sometimes taking upwards of several years to gain traction. It’s an up (Capitol) Hill battle.

With limited resources and budgets, maintaining a contract on your own can be a drag. That’s why IT solution providers are on the hunt for trusted partners to gain access to public sector work – while avoiding the costs and time associated with government contracts.

Would you travel to a foreign country without a map or without first learning about the local laws and culture? Foreign travel can be rewarding; but there are certain requirements that can present challenges which cannot be overlooked or ignored. Just as your company evaluates global expansion, you also must understand the nuances of doing business abroad.

Nobody wants to face the fact that their business may be in decline. With the explosion of new technology disrupting business—especially around the supply chain—organizations that don’t adapt will inevitably stagnate, but that doesn’t have to mean the end. By taking the right steps toward transformation, business leaders can mobilize their companies back to the top using supply chain strategies and solutions that reduce costs, increase profits and create sustainable processes that propel businesses into the future.

This is the second of the three-part series, "Supply Chain Management in the Digital Age," introduced last month.  In this post I will discuss the use of automation and IoT in warehousing and material handling.

Supply chain automation has been around for decades, but the sad fact remains that too few operations are adopting at a rate that satisfies the needs and wants of their consumers.

Today we are literally surrounded by technology. Data permeates each of us syncing our cars, our phones and our tablets. It even makes our TVs ‘smart.’ Cellular traffic, ubiquitous to even the most remote locations, feeds our growing appetite for information. It even communicates on our behalf when geographical or linguistic limitations impede our ability to effectively articulate location or intent.

The U.S. state, local and education (SLED) sector represents one of the largest marketing demographics in the world with purchases of roughly $1.5 trillion annually and nearly a half million competitive sales opportunities for businesses. Based on market size alone, the opportunity to grow a SLED portfolio is huge and can make even the most apathetic, teem with enthusiasm. However, given the size and variety of potential solutions involved in a SLED proposal, these ‘target rich’opportunities can be highly complicated and daunting.

Before 2018, sustainability may have meant separating out your plastics and paper, but over the past several months, it has become an important topic – whether it’s at the dinner or conference table. In an effort to create more sustainable pathways for the future, paper straws are being offered in place of plastic. Some cities and countries have even enacted complete bans on single-use plastics.

In a recent Authority blog post discussing the rate of change taking place with technology, Moore’s Law was cited claiming that technology doubles itself every 18 months (Transforming at the Speed of Cloud). This certainly appears true as next-generation technologies continue to evolve our industry at a mind-numbing rate. Given the dynamic and disruptive nature of the digital transformation underway, it’s no surprise that the protocols and concepts associated with the way technology is delivered are also changing.

The genesis of the term “cloud computing” may be somewhat cloudy (some point to a Compaq business plan from 1996), but it’s clear that internet-based computing has had a substantial impact on our lives. The challenges associated with adapting to the “everything-as-a-service (XaaS)” business model are considerable, especially for long-established original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) who grew up on margin-rich product sales. Newer OEMs face challenges,

IDC predicts that 35 percent of Fortune 1000 companies will have a Device-as-a-Service (DaaS) agreement in place by 2019¹. Tech Data’s Tech-as-a-Service (TaaS) program provides the ability to deploy only what’s needed, increase worker productivity, and reduce IT and procurement workload. This beneficial program cuts costs by bundling hardware, software, accessories, activations, services and more into a single subscription. With technology transforming at a