Jim Tompkins

At the Gartner Supply Chain Planning Summit in Denver, Scott Luton sat down with Nari Viswanathan, a veteran innovator in the planning and procurement technology space and a key leader at Coupa. The two reconnected after several recent collaborations—including webinars, industry sessions, and conversations in Dallas—and discussed the new realities of supply chain planning and how organizations are embracing technology like never before.   Coupa and Autonomous Spend Management For those less familiar with Coupa, Viswanathan explained the company as the global leader in autonomous spend management—a framework that brings together direct and indirect spending to help organizations manage total spend more intelligently. Direct spend, of course, is where supply chain operations come into focus, making planning, design, and cost optimization central to the value Coupa delivers. Viswanathan leads Coupa’s global supply chain strategy, shaping how the company positions and scales its solutions across the market. After years spent in supply chain planning technology, he now sits at the intersection of procurement, supply chain, and advanced analytics—an area he believes has never been more exciting or more critical.   Old Problems, New Pressures—and a Greater Willingness to Innovate When asked about the biggest challenges facing planners today, Viswanathan emphasized a…

Stay up to date on all the latest conversations, interviews, and episodes we released this week here at Supply Chain Now! We started this week off with a very special episode of Supply Chain Now. Host Scott Luton and special co-host Allison Giddens get to converse with a pair of very powerful women in the manufacturing business. Scott and Allison talk with Stacey Schroeder the President and Founder of EVelop; and the Value Improvement Project Engineer at Polaris Industries, Coral Huffmaster. Together they discuss the Key Takeaways from the 2021 Women in Manufacturing Summit. For Monday’s This Week In Business History episode, Kelly Barner explores a car invention that was created over 120 years ago. On Tuesday, we released a new episode of Supply Chain Now with Scott Luton and Greg White. This episode features two of Manhattan Associates’ reputable representatives. Rob Schaefer the Vice President of Transportation Management Sales and Gregg Lanyard the Director of Product Management for Manhattan Associates. During this episode, they all offer their perspectives on the supply chain outlook for 2022. On Wednesday we released an episode of Logistics With Purpose with host Enrique Alvarez and Kristi Porter. This episode features Michael Broidy the Senior…