During the last years‎,‎ the competitive pressures and short product lifecycles have caused many manufacturing and retail companies to focus on supply chain management practices and applications‎.‎ Continuing shifts in the geopolitical situation ‎(‎e‎.‎g‎.‎ NAFTA‎,‎ Extension of European Union‎)‎ and emerging markets ‎(‎e‎.‎g‎.‎ Eastern Europe and China‎)‎ opened new business opportunities and at the same time kept companies busy revising their supply chain structures such as manufacturing locations‎,‎ warehouse locations‎,‎ inbound logistics‎,‎ and distribution operations‎.‎ This led to an increased demand in strategic supply chain planning tools such as supply chain simulators and location optimization tools‎.‎ New techniques and practices for highly efficient supply chain management are being made possible by the rapid progress in information and communication technologies‎,‎ laying the foundation for a new wave of applications‎.‎ Connectivity and the integration of business processes have laid the foundations for an increased visibility over the entire supply chain‎.‎ Software technologies like portals‎,‎ data warehouses‎,‎ reporting systems‎,‎ and on‎-line analytical processing ‎(‎OLAP‎)‎ are providing the necessary information and visibility for the decision makers‎.‎ The next step is to assist the decision maker to quickly and optimally respond to unexpected situations‎.‎ Intelligent analytics can automatically determine the best decision alternative and predict its consequence on the supply chain performance‎.‎ We use the phrase ‎"‎sense and respond‎"‎ to characterize such a supply chain management system that is able to respond quickly and optimally to unexpected situations‎.‎ These chapters of this book were written by supply chain researchers‎,‎ consultants‎,‎ and supply chain practitioners who have not only developed the practices but have deployed these practices in various supply chains at IBM and other companies‎.‎