Technologist and innovator Steve Jobs shared his wisdom with graduates of Stanford University in a 2005 address. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is…

Recently, I got to chat with a customer who asked me if we had ever considered adding a warehouse management system (WMS) to our product lineup. I pointed to the crowded playing field (which is filled with giants like Manhattan Associates, JDA, SAP, Infor, IBS, Logfire, Microsoft, Oracle, and Softeon). His response surprised me: “Nobody writes WMS keeping the operators in mind.” As he said it, I knew it was true. He elaborated, saying the…

Recently saw a video about the newest robotics capabilities and it gave me an eerie feeling.  It showed robots from Boston Dynamics trudging through the snow and lifting and carrying, all on two legs. I cannot stop imagining a world where these robots acquired super intelligence and are fighting a war against the humans to take over the world like they did in the movie Terminator 4 Salvation. Now, Google-parent Alphabet has listed the company for sale,…

Technology is not a silver bullet to bring down every business problem. Instead, process drives cost savings and technology enables better processes. The two cannot be separated. Process and procedure produce the benefit; whereas, technology provides the capability to not only deploy such a process, but also to establish processes in the form of a system that is easy for operators to follow. It is very important to ensure that the process that is being…

During arms-control summit meetings with Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980s, President Reagan often used a favorite Russian “doveryai, no proveryai,” that is “trust, but verify.” Reagan had come to realize that the evil empire might be a negotiating partner. The path was rocky, but the two managed to reduce the nuclear arsenals that were both the threat and the stabilizing factor of the Cold War. Reagan and Gorbachev Source: The Reagan Vision…

Historically, I’ve been a huge fan of Apple. They have a track record of making quality products and articulating a clear corporate philosophy. After being inspired by all the things Steve Jobs did to build his company and change the perspective of the world, I’ve come to believe that, at the moment, the company is taking its eye off the ball. The launch of Apple 6s Smart Battery Case is one good example. It illustrates a…

It has been said that data in the twenty-first century is like oil in the eighteenth century. I don’t agree with this 100%. Like oil, data has to be refined before it is used, and it’s only as valuable as the insights that are drawn from it. Further, oil is a limited commodity —and we all know that the deluge of data is getting bigger every day. And with the proliferation of sensors everywhere, especially…

Change management and innovation go hand in hand. It is comparatively easy to innovate, but getting the entire organization to adopt that change is trickier, even though we all know that change is the only thing is constant. In an area like supply chain, where conformity is favored over individuality, it gets even more challenging. There are many reasons for it, including: Nobody likes a change in the status quo. People are territorial, and nobody…

We live in a world that is bathed in data…and yet too often that data yields little in terms of information. Today, data proliferates business, but the worth of that data can only be measured by the insights derived from it. Further, we need data that we can substantiate from other relevant metrics and that we can act upon effectively. Currently, we lack (and hopefully are evolving) a framework and a systematic approach to analyzing…