Nate Shutes

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…

It’s been an exciting week here at Supply Chain Now! Get ready to hear all the latest episodes, interviews, conversations, and livestreams from this week right here. On Monday, we released 3 new episodes! In this episode of Supply Chain Now, we introduced the relaunch of our Supply Chain Real Estate series, in partnership with Prologis. Special host Ward Richmond of Colliers International joined our Supply Chain Now host Scott Luton to welcome Melinda McLaughlin and Megan Creecy-Herman of Prologis to the show. On This Week in Business History, Scott Luton shares 9 Things you Didn’t Know About Tina Fey. On Supply Chain Now en Espanol, host Enrique Alvarez welcomed José Luis Silva Vázquez with Dux Capital to hear stories from his childhood and how self-motivation and taking risks have gotten him where he is today. On Tuesday, we released 2 new episodes! On this episode of TEKTOK, Kelly Barner and Enrique Alvarez joined Karin Bursa and Scott Luton to discuss how the industry has bounced back since the pandemic began and how far we’ve come on a few important themes around digital supply chain and procurement. On TECHquila Sunrise, host Greg White continued his conversation with stealthy startup co-founder…