Watch: Technology Adoption: It's More Than Plug and Play

Tushar Bhalla, chief technology officer with CloudPaths, relates how his company works with SAP to implement modern-day technology suites for the supply chain.

CloudPaths helps customers to implement a variety of supply chain applications, in partnership with SAP and the numerous solutions that exist within the latter’s extended ecosystem.

In today’s environment, companies might assume that uncertainty is their biggest supply chain challenge. Bhalla sees it differently: “It’s what happens in real time.” The challenge, he says, lies in figuring out how quickly they can respond to events. What makes that doubly difficult for many companies is the scattering of critical data across multiple functional silos, so that the information isn’t connected.

As an implementer of SAP applications, CloudPaths helps customers understand the value of the information they possess, and how to use it to react to given situations. Bhalla stresses that implementations are about more than just the technology — they require attention to “people, process and data.” The last needs to be connected, cleansed and validated in order for it to deliver value.

As it undertakes its journey of adopting artificial intelligence, CloudPaths aids customers in developing their own roadmaps for adoption. In the process, they stand to optimize their supply chains and inventory levels. Key to that effort, however, is decision velocity — how quickly they can act.

A number of point solutions are involved in the initiative, but CloudPaths stresses the need to adopt advanced planning and scheduling as a foundation, then layer intelligence on top of that. In incorporating integrated business planning into the organization, Bhalla says, it’s important for users “not just to sense and detect, but also to predict and explain.”