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I laugh when business leaders tell me that they are going to replace their current supply chain planning technologies with “AI.” Each supply chain planning technology at the end of 2024, went through disruption–change in CEO, business model shift, layoffs, re-platforming and acquisitions. You are right.
In follow-up qualitative interviews, one of the largest issues with organizational alignment was metric definition and a clear definition of supply chain excellence. In my post Mea Culpa, I reference my work with the Gartner Supply Chain Hierarchy of Metrics. Error is error, but is it the most important metric? My answer is no.
Venture capitalists are high on Artificial Intelligence (AI), and over-exuberant professors with shiny new models are jockeying into position to get rich. Building a software company is hard work. Most of the business networks were hollowed out by venture capitalists or purchased by opportunists.
Enterprise procurement teams face growing pressure to deliver strategic value – managing supplier risk, ensuring compliance, and supporting sustainability – all without sacrificing speed or control. This blog explores the most common challenges in digital procurement and the capabilities that matter most.
As supply chains become more interconnected and risks more dynamic, traditional procurementtools fall short. AI agents offer a smarter, faster way to manage sourcing, risk, and spend across the entire procurement lifecycle. This refers to AI systems that act with autonomy and are programmed to accomplish specific goals.
As supply chains become more interconnected and risks more dynamic, traditional procurementtools fall short. AI agents offer a smarter, faster way to manage sourcing, risk, and spend across the entire procurement lifecycle. This refers to AI systems that act with autonomy and are programmed to accomplish specific goals.
Three months into 2025, we have seen a barrage of on-again, off-again tariffs that have supply chain and logistics teams reeling, as they must rethink everything from next weeks shipping route to their foundational network models. With the global e-commerce market predicted to reach $8.1 The Ukraine-Russia conflict is ongoing.
Renewable Energy for Facilities: Warehouses and distribution centers can integrate solar panels and wind turbines to lower energy costs and carbon footprints. Retrofitting existing infrastructure with energy-efficient technologies further enhances sustainability efforts. Advanced route optimization tools further support these goals.
Reason #4 Making key decisions by modelling the supply chain in Excel. Reason #9 Relentless pursuit of one supply chain metric at the expense of other metrics. Reason #9 Relentless pursuit of one supply chain metric at the expense of other metrics. Why do companies focus on reducing a specific metric?
Analytics and business intelligence (BI) are no longer optionaltheyre essential. Thats why modern BI systems are quickly becoming the go-to solution for data-driven enterprises. They integrate, align, and activate data across the business to drive better, faster decisions unlike legacy reportingtools that can’t.
This year’s conference brought together industry leaders, tech pioneers, and retail professionals to address challenges and opportunities, to explore technologies and strategies that promise to revolutionize the industry. Agent AI is emerging as a game-changing tool for understanding and responding to customer behavior in real-time.
For most CPOs and CFOs, deciding on the right purchasing setup — centralized or decentralized — is no small task. Each model has its perks, and choosing the best fit can feel like walking a tightrope. Keep reading to learn: What is centralized purchasing? What is centralized purchasing?
Traditionally, procurement has been a process weighed down by manual tasks, fragmented systems, and endless paperwork. Today, procurement is undergoing a transformation. While procurement teams have long worked to add strategic value, Artificial Intelligence (AI) amplifies their impact.
The systems–based on shipment and order data–were out of step with the market. With fixed models and hard-wired data feeds, teams could not adjust the planning systems to use consumption data or market indicators. Next Steps: Start to model demand based on market data to align the organization on baseline demand.
Strategic sourcing and innovative solutions are often viewed as two distinct procurementtools, but they should not be seen in isolation. Think of them as apples and gearseach essential and effective on its own, yet when combined; they create a formidable mechanism for achieving procurement excellence.
Chances are, if you’re in marketing, sales, or one of the more technical aspects of business, you’ve used predictiveanalytics in some part of your job. But your company doesn’t have to be a retail giant to use predictiveanalytics. using predictiveanalytics?built PredictiveAnalytics in a Nutshell.
Supply chain efficiency is the cornerstone of success and involves the effective management of processes, resources, and technologies from procurement to production, transportation to warehousing. In the automotive sector, manufacturers are simultaneously reducing inventory costs and delivery times.
The supply chain is a complex non-linear system. At each company, there is a relationship between the metrics of growth, margin, inventory, customer service, and asset strategy. For the purpose of this article, I will use Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) as the proxy metric to discuss asset utilization.) Was this by design?
I asked companies to “Navigate through the hype focusing on the feasibility of scope and technology.” In the height of the e-commerce craze, the marketplace offerings started with a focus on e-procurement. At the time, the popular belief was that Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) technologies would build multi-tier capabilities.
Knowledge Graphs are emerging as an important tool for building advanced AI capabilities. Agentic AI involves creating a system of interacting agents, each trained on a specific task or dataset. We needed to model the data in a way that we can do simple searching. Agentic allows for much greater flexibility. Data does not move.
Companies became less clear on the definition of supply chain excellence and how to implement decision support technologies. The financial teams, and the Information Technology (IT) groups, did not see alignment gaps, but the supply chain teams felt them and viewed them as a critical performance issue. Functional Metrics.
To keep customers like my dad satisfied, RGD and Quick-commerce companies need to invest in new technologies to optimize the supply chain and logistics operations. These technologies are often invisible to the end-user but make a big difference in keeping the promises about product availability, freshness, and speed of delivery.
In fact, transportation management is our specialty as we’ve been providing our shipper customers with a web-based transportation management system and managed transportation services since 1998. Finally, as expected, technology and transportation management systems were also a popular subject. Read the Full Blog Post.
Mobile inventory management is a digital solution that combines a mobile inventory app with cloud-based software to track, manage, and optimize inventory in real-time. Cloud software: Stores and distributes real-time data, producing reports accessible to all team members. Let’s get started!
Introduction Gardner, (1954) and Huntzinger, (2007) define Purchase price variance (PPV) as a metric used to measure the effectiveness of cost-saving efforts by calculating the difference between the planned cost (standard pricing) allocated for purchasing activities and the actual cost incurred.
Procurement and Supply Chain Management are essential functions that can help companies navigate these challenges, but they are often siloed and operate in separate departments. Their metrics are often misaligned as well – supply chain focuses on service and procurement focuses on the cost of acquiring materials and services.
The consulting team pitches a theme–vision of supply chain best practices, big data analytics, or demand-driven value networks– to the executive team, and a new project is initiated. The first evolution of technologies were built by best-of-breed solution vendors. The first step in the journey is a kick-off meeting.
By embedding analytics across logistics, sourcing, and fulfillment, businesses gain the visibility and foresight needed to stay competitive.Analytics-driven leadership is no longer a luxury; it’s the foundation of operational survival in todays volatile business environment. Analytics allows organizations to move beyond intuition.
End-to-end supply chain visibility, planning, and execution support software are critical in agile supply chain performance. CPG companies that utilize an autonomous supply chain technology see a reduction in their inventory and cost and an increase in revenue.
When making discretionary purchases, I could look at my projection to make sure that if I made that purchase, I would have enough money in the bank, not only now, but at the end of the month when my mortgage and car loan came out. Planning systems, however, are not designed to allow you to ask ‘what if?’ In-memory analytics.
Some supply chain companies are leaning on the power of analytics to help streamline their processes and get ahead of their competitors. But many companies have struggled to embrace the relationship between using analytics and implementing changes that can improve business performance. The simpler the model, the more likely the use.
In recent years, the overall state of Procurement has been bolstered by increased proficiency, expanding engagement, and a growing direct impact on operations. And they’re not the only ones—other department heads are also increasingly budget-conscious, creating a new opportunity to partner with procurement for better budget management.
This is why I host training twice a year to challenge existing technology paradigms. I see a preponderance of reports and white papers that have lots of pages but say little. He feels that based on his years of experience with a software provider, he has a whizzbang technology. The average purchased order changes 3.5
Being listed on a last-mile-delivery service platform and reaching a much broader customer base beyond the neighbors became a must-have for survival. Digital commerce efficiently requires the digitalization of many customer-facing operations and sourcing and procurement. Here are the steps to take for going digital: .
by Trevor Miles I have been in the advanced planning and scheduling (APS) space since 1995 when I joined i2 Technologies in Europe. My enhancements were to add the underlying technology and company information at the bottom which gives some context. . Let me start with the confusion between planning and execution. Their words.
With international commerce increasingly digitalized and customer requirements continuing to grow, the demands on supply chain professionals to create frictionless, responsive, and cost-effective operations have never been higher. Check out SCMDOJO’s Inventory Optimization Tool , and enhance your inventory management capabilities!
The attendees were sitting on the edge of their seats to hear about the next release of Llamasoft software. The market for network design tools was growing at a moderate rate, and most of the market had invested in technologies from either i2 Technologies (then termed i2 Strategist) or Logictools. The theatre was packed.
As an old gal, with over forty-years of supply chain experience, writing this report for ten years taught me many lessons. In retrospect, I find that technology is an enabler, but only if we are clear on what defines supply chain excellence. The group’s response is, “Are these supply chain metrics?” I admit it.
It’s a holistic approach that blends strategic planning, streamlined processes, and the right technology to transform your warehouse into a well-oiled, profit-generating machine. An in-depth look at the tangible benefits, from cost reduction to increased customer satisfaction.
The data models are wrong. The systems are based on 1990s thinking. It was when gasoline was 1/3 the cost of today and there was a lot of excitement about 32-bit architectures and the move to client-server systems. Which supply chain metrics correlate to market capitalization by Morningstar sector? Moving Forward.
“The idea of the value chain is based on the process view of organizations, the idea of seeing a manufacturing (or service) organisation as a system, made up of subsystems each with inputs, transformation processes and outputs. The investment in technologies has made companies more efficient, but not more effective.
Streamline Your Route Planning Process Daily route planning can quickly become overwhelming, especially if you’re managing delivery routes using spreadsheets, manual methods, or basic mapping tools. Top 10 Route Planning Software Solutions: Overview Here’s a quick comparison of the top route planning software solutions in 2025.
That’s where manufacturing inventory management software comes in. The right software can streamline your production, optimize stock levels, and even help you save money. We’re talking real-time tracking, automated purchasing, and a whole lot less stress.
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