Still, Hugos was far from antitechnology in his remarks. In particular, he touted the usefulness of business process management, business activity monitoring and simulation tools.

Hugos was recently the CIO of Network Services Co., an US$8.2 billion distribution cooperative providing products and supply chain services related to food-service disposables, janitorial supplies and printing paper. He is the author of two books, Essentials of Supply Chain Management and Building the Real-Time Enterprise: An Executive Briefing. He is also a Computerworld columnist.