Shawn Barker

At the Gartner Supply Chain Planning Summit in Denver, Scott Luton sat down with Sean Elliott, CEO of ToolsGroup, to discuss why uncertainty is no longer something supply chain leaders should fear—and how the right technology can turn volatility into advantage. Elliott brings decades of experience across supply chain execution and planning, a background that shapes his pragmatic leadership philosophy. As he noted, bad plans can cripple even the best execution environments, just as poor execution can undermine well-crafted plans. ToolsGroup’s mission sits squarely at that intersection.   What Makes ToolsGroup Different Elliott described ToolsGroup as one of the few truly probabilistic planning providers in the market. While many vendors claim probabilistic capabilities, most stop at probabilistic forecasting. ToolsGroup goes further by embedding probabilistic thinking across the full breadth of its planning technology. The company’s belief is simple but powerful: uncertainty is not the enemy—it’s an asset. Rather than chasing forecast accuracy for its own sake, ToolsGroup focuses on business outcomes. What planning organizations really care about, Elliott argued, is having the right inventory in the right place at the right time to satisfy customers. Customer satisfaction—driven by availability, pricing, and service—is the ultimate goal. Probabilistic planning enables organizations to…

Special guest post written by Chris Cunnane with InterSystems Supply chain orchestration is the coordinated management of end-to-end supply chain activities, across planning, sourcing, production, logistics, and delivery, using technology, data, and processes to ensure that every moving part works together seamlessly. It enables organizations to attain an agile and resilient supply chain model through the use of decision intelligence. This is achieved through the See > Understand > Optimize > Act framework, which gives organizations the confidence to plan and respond to disruptions with assurance in their supply chain stability. See: gather raw data and information from your environment or a situation. Understand: analyze the information you’ve seen to build a comprehensive understanding of the context, your knowledge, and potential complexities. Optimize: develop the best possible solution or course of action to address the situation. Act: implement your chosen solution, putting your knowledge into practice. From a practical standpoint, this framework powers your supply chain application ecosystem with end-to-end visibility, insights, and better decisions. It helps organizations reach their supply chain goals by enabling them to align processes, stakeholders, and technology toward desired outcomes. The end result is reduced costs, improved operating margins, and optimized sustainability decisions, among others.…