Scott Koegler of ec-bp.com talks with Debbie Irwin of Land-O-Lakes about her quest to find tools to manage data about the company's products.

While there is broad-based recognition that the ‘Cloud’ is fundamentally impacting how computing power and business applications are delivered and consumed, it is now becoming clear to a growing number of enlightened corporate decision-makers that today’s rapidly evolving Cloud capabilities can also significantly improve their business intelligence (BI) and analytics capabilities as well.

As ecommerce continues its upward growth, more and more merchants are considering and leveraging drop shipping, in which manufacturers or distributors handle and ship orders directly to the end customer. The benefits are clear: there are lower inventory costs and less risk, since retailers don’t have to stockpile inventory that might not sell.