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William Dorn, Director of Operations, Source One Management Services. Can't get funding to invest in new supply management technology? Try free Web-based toolsets like Dorn's www.WhyAbe.com.

Don Dougherty, Managing Partner, SupplyStaff. In these tough times, it is essential to keep workforce morale up while investing in development activity to up-skill the organization.

Mark Doughton, President, Inmar CLS Reverse Logistics. To manage the reverse supply chain in challenging economic times, stay close to your customer to understand their challenges, provide visibility to their data and provide value-added solutions for streamlining processes and enhancing customer satisfaction.

Greg Dukat, CEO, StarCite. Don't overlook niche categories of spend to target for savings, such as meetings, which can represent up to 3% of revenues for many large companies.

J. Michael Edenfield, President and CEO, Logility, Inc. Instead of canceling new initiatives wholesale and pulling back on improvement investments, be more strategic and target areas within your supply chain that will help your company survive in the difficult economy but also position it to thrive in the future.

Christie Eykelkamp, General Manager, e-Business Solutions, ModusLink. Consider implementing a fully integrated set of e-business services, supporting both forward and service supply chains, that can help alleviate physical and digital supply chain challenges.

John Evans, Managing Partner, Denali Intelligence. During the recent period of volatile markets, John has helped establish category-specific market intelligence that helps sourcing professionals understand supply markets, pricing trends and sourcing best practices within specific spend categories.

Michele Flynn, President, Expense Management Solutions, Inc. Flynn pinpointed governance and strategic relationship management on an ongoing basis to drive millions in additional savings to the corporate bottom line, an advantage that might mean the difference between success or failure in a difficult economy.

Phil Friedman, Vice President of Consumer Products, QAD. Collaboration must be a tightly coupled relationship not only between retailer and manufacturer, but between manufacturers and all downstream suppliers and stake holders; including logistics, raw material, sub-contractors, packaging and quality / validation services and legal and finance. Without focusing on these downstream components there are too many points of failure to drive the right product at the right time at the right place and at the right cost.

Jim Frome, Chief Strategy Officer, SPS Commerce. Look at software-as-a-service and on-demand solutions not only for their potential to provide lower costs than installed software but also for their potential to offer capabilities that installed software can't provide.

Patrick Grady, CEO, Rearden Commerce. Leverage technology that allows you to manage and control demand within your own organization, for example, for employee business services, to ensure compliance and meet savings targets.

Bernard Gunther, CEO, Lexington Analytics. Establish a formal program to capture and leverage the data in your AP Spend Cube by better understanding what the company is buying, the prices being paid and how that compares to the contract and the marketplace.

Gary Hare, President and CEO, Vinimaya. As you take steps today to deal with the current downturn, ensure that you are not merely trimming costs but actually are improving the efficiency of your supply chain.

Bill Harrison, President, Demand Solutions. Before cutting jobs or conducting layoffs, Harrison thinks the one place organizations can look to save big right now is in their supply chain and encourages companies to "layoff their inventory."

David Henshall, President, Corporate Purchasing Practice Inc. Build your internal brand within the organization as a leader focused on your company's priorities. This helps overcome the perception of supply chain as a "single strategy function." Listen to the business stakeholders, understand their priorities and concerns, and develop a leadership brand that supports the values and motivations of the business.

Erik Huddleston, Chief Technology Officer, Inovis. On managing risk: use technology that provides supply chain visibility, analyze supply chains to create lean processes, automate the supply chain, and use outsourcing and SaaS to manage supply chain risk.

Tony Im, Practice Director, SciQuest, Inc. In these tough economic times, strengthen your supplier partnerships by negotiating terms and conditions that benefit both parties. Evaluating the entire relationship, rather than focusing solely on short-tem price cuts, will pay greater dividends down the road.

Melissa Irmen, VP Products & Services, Integration Point. Be proactive in industry groups and initiatives aimed at ensuring trade regulations and requirements can be implemented cost effectively as well as in a timely manner. Understand critical current and forthcoming regulations and the importers'/exporters' roles and responsibilities in upholding them.

Bill Jackowski, Vice President Professional Services, Management Dynamics. Look at expanding the global component of your supply chain, but consider internalizing and automating the direct import process to eliminate the "middle man" and further optimize the international supply chain.

Josh Johnson, President, Fidelitone Logistics. Johnson has helped his customers save millions of dollars through creative solutions such as virtual return programs – one major retailer's removed over $3 million dollars in freight costs through this process.

David Johnston, SVP of Manufacturing and Wholesale Distribution, JDA Software. For wholesaler-distributors, leverage supply and demand chain optimization solutions to proactively review forecasts, replenishment levels and supplier relationships to ensure the flexibility needed during these uncertain economic times.

Rene' Jones, Founder and President, Total Logistics Solutions, Inc. Jones' philosophy has remained the same in good and turbulent times: "The Simpler the Better!" Whether in technology or processes, he feels it is the responsibility of the manager not to over complicate things. His motto: "If it takes a genius to understand it or to do it, get rid of it!"

Marc Kalman, CEO, eZCom Software Inc. As a champion for SMBs, Kalman works to streamline their supply chains and increase efficiencies, giving his customers a competitive edge.

Jim Kandilas, Co-founder, The Shelby Group. Find innovative ways to fund projects. Kandilas worked on a solution where a cash-rich client communicated the need for their top 50 suppliers to accept discounted payment terms. The discount will be leveraged as fees from purchasing. Purchasing will then use those fees to fund their technology footprint, which will in turn enable them to place more spend under management and drive further savings.

Jeff Karrenbauer, President, INSIGHT, Inc. Ensure that strategic supply chain planning incorporates both marketing and supply chain strategy.

Duncan Klett, Vice President, Analytics Research, Kinaxis. Look for solutions that merge traditional planning and execution. As the volatility of the market intensifies, and "reality" moves farther from "the plan", managers have to engage in continuous planning to keep up with the changing landscape.

Anne M. Kohler, EVP, COO & Founding Partner, The Mpower Group. Looking for savings? Why not just ask your best suppliers for lower prices as an alternative to going to the market to rebid a category?

Tom Kozenski, VP, Product Strategy, Supply Chain Execution Solutions, RedPrairie. Ensure that you have an end-to-end view of the technology that runs your supply chain to identify additional points of integration that can produce additional efficiencies or visibility into your operations.

Shawn Lane, Vice President, Product Marketing, Servigistics. Consider ways to turn after-the-sale service into a new product line – and revenue source – for your company.

Steven LaVoie, Chairman and CEO, ArrowStream, Inc. For the foodservice industry, trading partners should share and have access to information on product, contract, pricing, inventory and freight – and share resulting savings – so everyone involved can make smarter forecasting, sourcing, product movement and logistics decisions.

Paige Leidig, Vice President, Procurement Solution Marketing, SAP. Link spend analysis, sourcing, global trade services, and contract management to close the loop between identified and negotiated savings, resulting in increased spend under management, reduced costs, and improved compliance with contracts and policies.

Fred Lizza, CEO, Optiant. Don't just reduce inventory – optimize it, including by using a "multi-echelon" approach to optimize inventory across an entire supply chain, not just discretely, location by location.

Thuy Q. Mai, CEO, DiCentral Corporation. Even during these hard financial times, vendors that have achieved EDI compliance are able to grow by expanding their customer base, says Mai.

Mike Maris, Senior Director, Transportation, Motorola. Invest in technologies that can provide end-to-end visibility of your supply chain is key, because if a company can understand all the components of the supply chain, they'll have a better grasp of where improvements can be made.

Doug Markle, Executive Vice President, Sales & Marketing, CVM Solutions. Ensure the smooth operation of your business, even in uncertain times, with supplier master data management, spend analysis, contract management and supplier registration platforms.

Monty Mason, Director of Product Marketing, Axway. Visibility, communication and collaboration. Mason's customers secure the crucial flow of actionable information across their trading partner community in order to manage risk and approach cost savings in a more targeted way.

Art Mesher, CEO, Descartes Systems Group. Supply chain disciplines will be the key drivers to helping organizations overcome the enormous obstacles they face in uncertain times, according to Mesher.

Karl Meyer, CEO, 3PD Inc. Looking for ways to save money? Take another look at the last mile. By increasing productive stop rates to 96 percent, Meyer's clients save, on average, 10-15 percent on redelivery costs.

Bill Michels, CEO, ADR North America. Manage the risks from troubled suppliers by assessing the strategic importance of your suppliers using a portfolio analysis; analyzing the health of the suppliers that leave your company most vulnerable; and preparing strategies that mitigate the risks you identify.