Pattern-based analytics solutions are already being leveraged by some companies, giving them a much-needed competitive advantage in a high-risk environment by providing insights into customer-buying patterns to guide the product offering, supply chain planning and execution.

FORBES: The Big Value In Big Data: Seeing Customer Buying Patterns

The diligence and expertise of officials in Marine Scotland, among the statutory consultees and other interests should give confidence to the offshore wind industry and its supply chain that planning matters should not be a barrier to investment in Scotland.

BBC: Consent for Donald Trump row wind farm announced

Business ByDesign includes hosted versions of several SAP applications, including enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, business intelligence, supply chain management and product lifecycle management.

FORBES: SAP's Stock Is Stuck If It Keeps On Bungling Software-As-A-Service

If given the choice of only being able to move one application to the cloud, most respondents would choose storage (25%), followed by enterprise resource planning applications to manage HR, customer relationship management, supply chain management, and project management systems (20%).

FORBES: Some Pain, But Plenty to Gain, from Cloud Deployments: Survey

In an open letter, Scottish and Southern Energy said the Orkney and Shetland upgrade projects had "experienced challenges in securing planning consents and land acquisition, and will be subject to delivery constraints in the global supply chain for subsea cables".

BBC: Scotland