Stephen Smitley

Most organizations talk about visibility—but few truly achieve it. Are you one of them? In today’s fast-paced, disruption-prone environment, having real-time visibility across your supply chain isn’t a luxury—it’s a necessity. Yet, fewer than 10% of companies surveyed can say they have end-to-end insight into their supply chain operations. So what’s standing in the way? And more importantly—how do you overcome it? “Understanding the Foundation of Visibility” is the first whitepaper in a powerful new series by NCS Partners, designed to help supply chain leaders break down silos, align teams, and turn fragmented data into actionable insight. Download this white paper to learn how to: Identify the five most impactful focus areas for building end-to-end visibility Align leadership and secure cross-functional buy-in to drive transformation Build a clear vision and roadmap to avoid common visibility pitfalls Integrate distributed data sources to enable real-time, actionable insight Promote continuous improvement and communication across teams   Whether you’re just beginning your visbility journey or ready to refine your approach, this foundational guide offers expert-backed strategies used by top-performing organizations.   Download the “Understanding the Foundation of Visbility” white paper here to learn more  

Special Guest Blog Post written by Parabola Founder & CEO, Alex Yaseen   Operators are under pressure. They’re expected to move faster, do more with less, and somehow keep everything running smoothly while their systems, tools, and data are a mess. Now, AI is adding a whole new layer. On one hand, it’s exciting. The potential is real. On the other, a lot of teams feel stuck. They know they should be using AI, but they’re not sure where it fits into their day-to-day work. These are the five questions I get asked most often—whether someone’s trying to get started with automation, or trying to figure out how AI actually helps. 1. Can we automate this, or is it too messy? This question usually comes from someone deep in a spreadsheet that was never meant to scale. The short answer is: yes, you can probably automate it. But the longer answer is that you’ll need to rethink the process first. AI can help summarize, transform, and clean data—but it won’t fix a broken workflow. That’s on you. The best teams pair structured automation with lightweight AI to get leverage. Think: using rules and logic to standardize a workflow, and AI…