Online shopping brings new opportunity

BANGALORE-INDIA: With increasing facility and availability of products on the Internet, Online shopping(direct consumer business) is becoming a promising segment for the Supply Chain Management (SCM) companies bringing growth prospects along with some challenges.
The vertical is poised to show doubled growth in next three to five years, from the present growth rate of 19 per cent year-over-year.
Eddie Capel, executive vice president for Global Operation - Manhattan Associates, a supply chain optimization company said, "Online shopping or e-shopping is the process of direct consumer business where consumers purchase products or services over the Internet. Currently, total online purchases would account for six-seven per cent of the total purchases that occur across globe." He estimated that within a few years this would reach to 15-20 per cent of the total sales which is expected to be the peak situation.
Speaking about the opportunity, Capel said, "Direct consumer business like online shopping is different from other delivery processes as the shipments are done on individual demand basis and not bulk orders.
Therefore, it becomes necessary for companies to have a supply chain management software to ensure smooth and managed delivery in right time and right place."
He added that major issue faced by companies is the rejection of the delivered product.
"Around one third of the products are returned back. In this case, collecting and sending the materials back from various points and giving back the right product is very important. Apart from transport and distribution management, companies also look for a robust forecasting and planning software, and after the sudden advent of slowdown leading, resulting in decline of sales has spurred demand for the forecasting solutions," he said.
He informed that apart from online shopping, other growing verticals are food delivery, life sciences and hi-tech.
Manhattan Associates expects to leverage on this opportunity with its solution-SCOPE. According to the company, SCOPE has got a broad range of solutions like of planning and forecasting, inventory optimization, order life cycle management, transportation life cycle management and distribution management.
The company boasts to have around 1,200 global customers such as Adidas, Dell, Walmart, Papa John's and Staples. It has a 19-year old legacy of specialization in Warehouse Management system (WMS) and Transportation Lifecycle Management.

Fans mark would-have-been birthday of 'King of Pop'

NEW YORK: Fans around the world on Saturday marked what would have been the 51st birthday of late pop icon Michael Jackson as thousands braved rain in New York for a party organized by filmmaker Spike Lee.
Lee arranged what he described as a "joyous, festive and celebratory" event in Brooklyn's Prospect Park, with DJ Spinna setting the beat.
As the party got underway there were fears that the rains would keep the crowds away, but as the skies cleared police estimated there were between 7,000 and 10,000 people.
Videos of some of Jackson's greatest hits were showing on a big-screen television. Some fans hit the dance floor and got down, Jackson-style.
Others waited and took turns writing down their memories of the star on a special memorial wall.
"May your spirit, light, love and music forever bless us as we dance the nights away," a fan named Kayine wrote inside a heart.
The celebration came as weeks of feverish speculation about the cause of Jackson's sudden death in Los Angeles on June 25 ended Friday when the county coroner's office ruled his demise was a homicide.

Qaeda names man who tried to kill Saudi prince

Abdullah al-Asiri entered from Yemen to bomb Nayef
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DUBAI- Al-Qaeda on Sunday identified a militant who tried to kill Saudi Arabia's security chief on Thursday as Abdullah al-Asiri, a wanted suspect who entered Saudi Arabia from Yemen.
A suicide bomber posing as a repentant militant blew himself up in the Jeddah office of Prince Mohammed bin Nayef in the first known attack on a member of the Saudi royal family since al-Qaeda began a violent campaign in the world's top oil exporter in 2003.
"The hero martyr on the list of 85 wanted persons Abdullah Hassan Tali' al-Asiri, known as Abul-Khair, managed to enter his palace, pass his guards and blow up a package," said a statement on Islamist websites attributed to the "Qaeda Jihad Organization in the Arab Peninsula."
The statement suggested Asiri was apparently flown to Jeddah from Najran near the Yemeni border after entering from Yemen to give himself up to the Interior Ministry.
"He managed to get through all the inspections at Najran and Jeddah airports and travelled on his (the prince's) private jet," it said, accompanied by a picture of Asiri.
It was not possible to verify the statement, which said the Saudi government had a network of spies in Yemen of which the Yemeni government was not aware.
Yemeni Foreign Minister Abubakr al-Qirbi told Al Arabiya that Asiri travelled to Saudi Arabia from the Yemeni region of Mi'rib, stating he wanted to hand himself in.
The bomber was the only casualty. Prince Nayef, who is responsible for battling terrorism in the kingdom, was receiving guests at the end of the day's fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said.
The 23-year-old Asiri insisted on meeting the prince to give himself up detonated his explosives. He also had a brother, Ibrahim, on the wanted list.
The Saudi and Yemeni branches of al-Qaeda merged early this year to form al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. They regrouped in Yemen after a vigorous counter-terrorism campaign led by Prince Mohammed, deputy interior minister, that badly damaged militants in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia issued a list of 85 wanted suspects in February and analysts said many of them were in Yemen, including some who had been returned to Saudi Arabia from U.S. detention in Guantanamo Bay and some who had been through a much-vaunted Saudi militant "correction" program.
Saudi officials fear militants are finding refuge in lawless swaths of Yemen, whose security forces are stretched by a tribal revolt in the north and separatist unrest in the south.

Pakistan modified US-made missiles-NYT

NEW YORK- The Obama administration has accused Pakistan of illegally modifying U.S.-made missiles to expand its ability to hit land-based targets, which would constitute a threat to India, The New York Times reported in Sunday editions.
Citing senior administration and Congressional officials, the Times said the charge came in late June through an unpublicized diplomatic protest to Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and other top Pakistani officials.
The accusation, made amid growing concerns about Pakistan's increasingly rapid conventional and nuclear weapons development, triggered a new round of U.S.-Pakistani tensions, the report added.
"There's a concerted effort to get these guys to slow down," the newspaper quoted a senior administration official as saying. "Their energies are misdirected," the official added.
A senior Pakistani official called the accusation "incorrect," saying that the missile tested was developed by Pakistan, just as it had modified North Korean designs to build a range of land-based missiles that could strike India, according to the Times.
U.S. officials said the disputed weapon is a conventional one based on the Harpoon antiship missiles that were sold to Pakistan during the Reagan administration as a defensive weapon, the newspaper reported, but the charges come as the Obama administration is seeking Congressional approval for $7.5 billion in aid for Pakistan over the next five years.
The accusation stems from U.S. intelligence agencies' detection of a suspicious missile test on April 23 which was never announced by the Pakistanis and which appeared to give it a new offensive weapon, the Times said.
U.S. military and intelligence officials suspect Pakistan of modifying the Harpoon sold to them in the 1980s, which would violate the Arms Control Export Act.
Pakistan denied the charge and said it developed the missile, the Times said.
The missiles would bolster Pakistan's ability to threaten India, stoking fears of heating up the two nations' arms race.
"The focus of our concern is that this is a potential unauthorized modification of a maritime antiship defensive capability to an offensive land-attack missile," another senior administration official told the Times, speaking on condition of anonymity about classified information.
"When we have concerns, we act aggressively," the official added. (Writing by Chris Michaud; Editing by Eric Walsh)