The impact of AI is unmistakable in every swipe on our smartphones and every click on our laptops, subtly shaping our digital interactions. It recommends articles, directs investments and refines our travel routes. This extends beyond mere personal benefits — AI is poised to significantly drive the global economy forward, with GenAI potentially boosting it by an impressive $13 trillion. This compelling economic benefit is a clear call to businesses: evolve with AI or risk falling behind.

Already, more than half of global companies are heeding this call, ready to amplify their investments to harness AI’s full economic potential.

Obstacles Mark the Path to AI-First Status

However, being an AI-first company takes a lot more than just updating software or getting the latest solutions; it takes a complete transformation of how businesses function, where we put the right focus, how we use technology, and the scale at which we innovate and operate.

Enterprises eager to integrate AI into their operations might first meet several critical speed bumps.

Endless Disruption:

AI is constantly evolving, accelerating transformations across sectors. Take banking, for instance. Its future is veering towards being a deeply personalized, intelligent, and omnichannel experience.

Imagine this: Sam, a working professional, seeks health insurance through her bank. Instead of the usual rate assessment, she receives a 2% discount on her premium, a perk dynamically calculated from her gym attendance and sleep quality. All this is streamlined by GenAI, slashing operational costs while delivering a hyper-personalized omnichannel experience.

Banks that harness AI and rapidly constantly evolve with it will be on track for exceptional growth.

On the other hand, those unable to keep pace stand to lose out significantly. The message is clear: AI is consistently transforming industries. Matching AI’s pace ensures robust growth and augmented shareholder value. Failing to do so, however, risks stagnation. The performance gap AI widens is undeniable.

SuboptimalTech Investments: 

When it comes to tech investments, it’s easy to get caught up in the latest and supposedly greatest, but that’s leading many companies down a costly path. Take this bank in North America as an example: they built a web of over 1,000 systems that are costing them $2 billion in ‘technical debt’ – the price we pay later for quick fixes made in a rush. This technical debt represents not just a financial strain but a significant obstacle to achieving a complete digital transformation.

A study indicates HR professionals navigate between three to six applications to complete a single task, a clear symptom of tool redundancy. Not only is the quantity of tools overwhelming, but the quality also leaves much to be desired, with reports of user-unfriendly interfaces and inconsistent performance.

The underlying issue is a misalignment of technology and business strategies. When we rush into new tech investments without a game plan that’s aligned with our larger business goals, we end up with a mishmash of old and new systems. It’s like trying to fit pieces from different puzzles together—impossible and expensive.

To avoid this, we need to think of digital transformation not as buying the latest tech but as a strategic rethinking that involves the whole company. It’s about choosing tools that integrate smoothly, keep our data in one piece, and make sure we are agile and can adapt as needed. That’s the kind of strategic thinking that will put us ahead and keep us there.

Pilots that don’t scale:

Pilot projects are popping up in boardrooms, each promising to be the next big thing in business transformation. But numbers show that despite the initial enthusiasm, a significant 70% fail to scale across the enterprise. Financial restrictions, operational complexities, and resistance to change clip the wings of widespread digital adoption.

These challenges mean that while certain areas of a business might enjoy the benefits of digital innovation, the impact doesn’t extend across the entire operation to user experiences.

This isn’t just about missing out on a few opportunities for improvement. It’s about the bigger picture: staying competitive. As digital initiatives fail in scaling up, businesses leave gaps for more tech-savvy disruptors to leap ahead. In short, we’re witnessing the paradox of progress: abundant technological advancements, yet a struggle to harness them for transformative change.

The great wall of Silos:

Take Sam’s case, where her dedication to fitness nets her a customized discount on health insurance, showcasing the power of AI to forge partnerships across banking, insurance, and health tech. This is the benchmark for an AI-first company: hyper-personalization at its finest.

However, what’s striking is that while this kind of inter-industry connectedness is the goal, many companies are struggling to achieve this seamless integration within their own walls. Silos are stifling the flow of information between people, processes, data, and tech, costing up to 30% of potential revenues and hindering the kind of integration essential for AI to thrive.

If Sam’s health data doesn’t speak to her financial profile, the opportunity for customized service vanishes. In this disconnect, the aspiration to be AI-first becomes unattainable. Breaking down these silos is an operational adjustment and a strategic imperative to unlock AI’s transformative promise.

These obstacles teach us an important lesson. Companies must ensure that their technology investments are not just new but right — right for their people, processes, and long-term strategic vision. Only then can they unlock the full potential of digital transformation and avoid the pitfalls that have ensnared many in a costly cycle of technical debt, unscalable pilots, and an overall disconnect in the enterprise.

Breaking Ground for a Customer-Focused, Automated, Data-Driven Future

Imagine a business landscape that not only adapts to market fluctuations but also forecasts them with pinpoint accuracy. This is the hallmark of AI-first enterprises.

Consider a leading supply chain organization that seamlessly predicts disruptions, adjusts its routes, and changes its course in real-time with the help of connected data systems, analytics, and AI.

How is this foresight achieved?

Their strategy is anchored in a customer-first or business-first philosophy. For them, transformation transcends digital—it’s about refining the entire user journey, enhancing it with technology, not being led by it. They place a premium on creating value through ecosystem partnerships and prioritizing human connections, tapping into contextual intelligence to guide their transformation efforts.

These organizations are steering towards a “hands off the wheel” future, where human ingenuity is the architect and sophisticated systems are the operatives.

Rather than focusing on cost reduction alone, they harness technology to amplify human capabilities. They aim for a high level of straight-through processing across essential customer journeys and business processes. By taking this approach, they don’t merely retrofit new technology into old systems. They design their processes with digital DNA from the outset.

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This strategic overhaul extends across all business divisions. In our supply chain scenario, it’s the convergence of logistics, inventory management, and customer service into a unified digital framework. Every department enriches the AI system, making decision-making processes not just quicker but also more intelligent and crafting a customer experience that is proactively engaging.

Does this mean an overhaul at the expense of existing investments?

Not at all. These businesses adopt a measured approach to reshaping their operating model. They strategically scale AI throughout their organization, taking a platform approach that connects all business operations, making digital engagement intrinsic to their identity.

[To share your insights with us, please write to sghosh@martechseries.com]

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Verity AG the world’s leading autonomous indoor drone company, is pleased to announce the successful completion of an additional $11M investment in its Series B funding round. With this latest capital raise, Qualcomm Ventures joins a distinguished group of backers including A.P. Moller Holding, Exor Ventures, the venture capital arm of Exor (Ferrari, Juventus FC, The Economist), as well as existing investors including Fontinalis Partners, Airbus Ventures, Sony Innovation Fund, ROBO Global Ventures and Verve Ventures, to support Verity’s mission and rapid growth to provide its clients with data-driven intelligence and inventory management solutions powered by self-flying drones.

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“The supply chain of the future is autonomous and automated”

The Series B capital will enable Verity to scale the delivery of zero-error warehouses and predictable value across a supply chain industry that is increasingly turning to technology to improve crucial operational impediments – labor shortages, lost productivity, inventory errors, and waste. By combining fully autonomous drone technology with advanced data analytics, Verity enables clients to benefit from real-time visibility and precise control over their inventory, driving operational efficiencies, cost savings, and reductions in CO2 emissions.

Verity has proven its capability to unlock this value with a fully reliable system that is asset-light and can be installed in one week. With installations across 13 countries, Verity is the market leader in deploying autonomous inventory management solutions, with industry leading clients spanning retailers, 3PLs, and manufacturers.

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“We are thrilled to welcome Qualcomm Ventures as a new investor in Verity,” said Verity Founder and CEO, Raffaello D’Andrea. “Their clear vision of supply chain transformation is perfectly aligned with Verity’s mission. Their extensive expertise and global resources make them an ideal partner as we continue to innovate and scale our autonomous inventory management solution. We look forward to leveraging their insights and network.”

“The supply chain of the future is autonomous and automated,” said Boaz Peer, Senior Director, Qualcomm Israel Ltd. and Managing Director of Qualcomm Ventures Israel and Europe. “Verity’s self-flying drone technology and advanced warehouse inventory analytics are helping transform supply chains by enabling end-to-end, real-time visibility. We’re excited to invest in Verity as it scales its operations internationally.”

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Unicommerce, an ecommerce enablement SaaS platform has launched its advanced inventory management solution with real-time inventory synchronisation to help brands fulfill 100 per cent of the orders received and to further boost the speed of processing orders.

The company offers the option to pre-compute the availability of bundled stocks per facility to boost the fulfillment rate of bundled orders. The enhanced version will also allow brands to improve product procurement and ensure that they are able to place orders for products well in advance and optimise inventory currently available across multiple facilities. The new solution also allows the sellers to set a minimum threshold for each SKU below which procurement and reallocation processes kick in automatically.

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Speaking about the launch of the solution, Kapil Makhija, CEO, Unicommerce said, “At Unicommerce, our product development pipeline is closely guided by the needs of our users. Our aim is to develop and deploy best-in-class technology solutions that remove the operational complexity for fast-growing e-commerce businesses. Our new advanced inventory management solution will allow brands to optimize their inventory utilization to fulfill each serviceable order and will also seamlessly augment the experience for buyers.

Unicommerce, in a statement said that it has been enabling ecommerce companies, D2C brands, omnichannel retailers and other online sellers with a nationwide presence across 8000+ warehouses and 3000+ stores, Unicommerce currently helps 20000+ businesses across 45+ industry segments and has achieved an annual run rate of processing over 600 million transactions amounting to USD 7bn+ annual GMV.

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Logile, the leading retail labor planning, workforce management, inventory management and store execution provider, announced the availability of its new complimentary Forecasting Pilot program available to all retailers. Retailers can sign up and use the industry’s most powerful, accurate AI and ML-driven metric forecasting through a fully automated self-serve platform.

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“The Logile Forecasting Pilot is a great way to get a taste of what their forecasting solution can do—at no cost. Northgate has benefited tremendously from Logile’s multi-dimensional, multi-layered forecasting accuracy, and the ability to lead with one centralized forecast has helped us realize significant operational improvements across our organization.”

Attaining the best possible forecasting accuracy is critical to retail decision making and operational efficiency in today’s uncertain and ever-changing environment. Designed to provide an easy, fast and low-risk way to sample the power of Logile’s forecasting platform, pilot participants can opt for 8 weeks of daily forecasts for up to 100 locations and 10 metrics. Results will be published to the participants within 7 days after submitting their parameters and historical data.

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In past competitive evaluations, Logile’s forecasting has outperformed all our competition. Using the latest artificial intelligence and machine learning-based algorithms, Logile generates forecasts at each individual metric level averaging above 97+ percent daily accuracy—the best in industry. The potential benefits are compelling: For WFM, every 1 percent improved accuracy can yield up to 50 percent reduction in overtime, half a percent decreased labor costs, 6 percent improved conversion and 12 percent improved customer satisfaction. For Ordering, an accurate forecast leads to stock on shelf at the right time while avoiding either unnecessary over-stocking, or even worse, an out-of-stock situation.

Highlights of our platform:

• Completely integrated with weather and climatology to provide the best opportunity to support seasonality and weather-bound shopping behavior
• Full Forecasting solution drills down to the SKU and UPC level with forecasting support at sub-category, category and volume group level
• Continuous reforecasting and self-learning that keeps improving over time translate into forecast accuracy improvements of 15-20 percent for the average business
• Provides further deep-down understanding at each individual layer and what that layer contributes to the forecast (e.g., weather, promotion, special events, holidays, day of the week, etc.)

“Now more than ever, the ability to accurately forecast demand and labor requirements is critical to retailers’ success navigating economic and market volatility, controlling labor costs and preserving service levels. We welcome you to experience the accuracy with your own data—and with complete privacy, access control and security—the power of the Logile Forecasting Platform as the most accurate and intelligent forecasting platform available today in the industry. We are excited to provide this complimentary Forecasting Pilot program with no obligation,” said Purna Mishra, Logile Founder and CEO. “We are confident retailers will be intrigued and delighted when they compare our automated forecast results with their actuals and legacy forecasts. Our mission is to help retailers thrive with the best available tools, and this pilot should provide a window into what’s possible. Our enterprise forecasting solution introduces many additional features that bring even more precision to the game.”

Vallarta Supermarkets
Steve Netherton, CIO, VP of Continuous Improvement:
“I highly encourage any retailer to take advantage of Logile’s free Forecasting Pilot offering as an easy opportunity to experience the solution’s power. Vallarta relies on Logile Forecasting to deliver incredibly accurate forecasts and real-time reforecasting that drive optimal labor planning, scheduling, task management and customer service delivery. The solution’s AI and self-learning capabilities are top of industry.”

Northgate González Market
Tom Herman, SVP Strategy and Execution:
“The Logile Forecasting Pilot is a great way to get a taste of what their forecasting solution can do—at no cost. Northgate has benefited tremendously from Logile’s multi-dimensional, multi-layered forecasting accuracy, and the ability to lead with one centralized forecast has helped us realize significant operational improvements across our organization.”

Schnuck Markets, Inc.
Tom Henry, Chief Data and Deputy Chief Information Officer:
“I think one of the main differentiators that Logile has versus its competitors is its multipurpose demand forecasting capability. It’s using artificial intelligence and a unique set of features. Whereas, a lot of people will look at transaction logs, Logile is pulling in weather data, price changes—a number of things—to create an actual demand of the customer for each store. And then we source labor to that demand. The multipurpose demand forecast allows you to forecast your labor but also optimize the tasks that they perform. So the customer is getting what they need—the best experience. The tasks within our stores are being completed, and the teammate is as productive as they can be.”

Kim Anderson, VP of Store Operations Support:
“We did the RFP with several providers and workforce management solutions and ended up choosing Logile because of their strong sales forecast. The benefits that we’ve gotten during implementation, and now what we’re getting with the scheduling, have been tremendous. The forecasting is solid, and it goes down to the UPC map, to the item level and the department level. The forecasting that we get and the schedule that it outputs makes a huge impact on the business. We have our people there at the right time for the customer.”

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GXO Logistics, the world’s largest pure-play contract logistics provider, announced that it has extended its partnership with Groupe SEB, offering additional warehouse space to enable sustainable growth. The company, based in France, is a leading manufacturer of small domestic appliances and cookware sold through multi-format retailing in more than 150 countries.

“We’re excited to extend our longstanding partnership with Groupe SEB as they continue to grow their business,” said Gavin Williams, Managing Director of GXO UK and Ireland. “With our commitment to continuous improvement, we’re helping Groupe SEB’s omnichannel business provide an outstanding customer experience in the U.K. and Ireland with our custom end-to-end supply chain solutions. We’ve successfully deployed a proprietary Warehouse Management System, and in 2023 GXO will implement additional automation and technology options — including autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), wearable scanners and printers and a boom conveyor belt — that will enable multistore picking, reducing in-aisle travel for retail by up to 50% and further improving pick accuracy. We’re committed to helping Groupe SEB to continue expanding its omnichannel business.”

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GXO uses the 220,000-square-foot space in West Hallam dedicated to Groupe SEB to receive and store the company’s products from Asia and Europe. GXO also processes, picks and ships orders for the company, handling up to 6,500 items per day and generating significant cost savings as well as providing the ability to quickly scale operations to support Groupe SEB’s growth.

GXO’s partnership with Groupe SEB started in 2008 with the stockholding of up to 12,000 pallets per week, and the activity has grown rapidly since then. Today, GXO provides stockholding across five locations to support peak stockholding levels required by Groupe SEB. Over the past year, GXO’s high level of stock accuracy has enabled the elimination of the annual stock count, reducing inventory management costs and the operational impact. GXO has helped Groupe SEB expand efficiently, including combining products from 11 storage locations into a single site solution.

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Martine Perkins, Warehouse and Distribution Manager, Groupe SEB UK Ltd, said, “We are happy to extend our contract with GXO because they are helping us to optimize and grow our business through the use of smart technology and automation. GXO is focused on achieving continuous improvement by creating a seamless service, offering significant efficiencies and superior supply chain support for the annual growth we’re projecting.”

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The updated Hydreight Wellness app gives health and wellness professionals such as nurses greater control over their service offering, as well as robust technical support

Hydreight Technologies Inc., a fast-growing telehealth platform and medical network, is pleased to announce the launch of its updated Hydreight Wellness App.

The Hydreight platform makes it possible for nurses and other licensed healthcare professionals across the U.S. to monetize their credentials and deliver health and wellness services independently, on their own terms. The platform has shown continuous growth month over month, adding nearly 650 of these business accounts in 2022 alone, a sixfold increase over 2021.

“This update delivers both aesthetic and functional upgrades with improved performance, usability, reporting, and overall functionality for both patients and service providers,” said Shane Madden, CEO of Hydreight. “We set out to create the infrastructure to make mobile healthcare and wellness a reality. Patients can find and book services as easily as they order an Uber or a DoorDash order, wherever they are, at their homes or on the road at their hotel.”

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The Hydreight Wellness app update includes:

• An improved booking experience that makes it easier for patients to schedule appointments
• Monthly membership and subscription options that service providers can customize with one service or bundle of services to fit the needs of their patients
• Enhanced onboarding support to make it easier to get up and running on the platform more quickly
• Complete in-app training is now available for all user roles, with updates planned to accompany all future releases
• Flexible payout dates can now be configured by the user, rather than being automatically set by the platform
• Inventory management is now under the control of the user, making it easy for each service provider to add and remove inventory from their offering as desired

Hydreight supports a range of health and wellness professionals, making it possible for them to offer IV drip, Botox, COVID-19 testing, and other medical and med spa treatments all in the comfort of the patient’s home, office, hotel, or any other suitable location of their choosing.

“We have made it possible for healthcare to take place beyond the confines of hospitals and clinics,” added Madden. “With medical director oversight, access to a digital pharmacy, and compliance infrastructure deployed automatically by the platform, we are proud to be changing the lives of nurses and other health and wellness professionals, as well as the lives of their patients.”

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Hydreight Technologies Inc. is a telehealth platform and medical network that bridges the gap between provider compliance and patient convenience, empowering nurses, med spa technicians, and other licensed healthcare professionals to monetize their credentials and deliver services independently, on their own terms, or add mobile services to existing location-based operations. The network offers medical director oversight, liability insurance, HIPAA-compliant documentation, access to a digital pharmacy, and more. The platform includes a built-in, easy-to-use suite of fully-integrated tools for accounting, documentation, sales, inventory, booking, managing patient data, and more, making it possible to deliver fully-compliant mobile medicine across all 50 states.

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Scispot, a tech stack for modern biostartups, has partnered with Quartzy, the leading lab supply management platform. Scispot’s user-friendly tech stack allows biostartups and scaleups to customize workflows, integrate data from hundreds of sources, and automate inventory management. Quartzy’s award-winning cloud-based connected lab platform combines supply requests, up to date inventory management, shopping and purchasing. All in a single platform.

Many labs use electronic lab notebooks (ELNs) and laboratory information management systems (LIMS) that do not integrate with product inventory and ordering systems. This makes it difficult to connect inventory with experiment execution and automate product re-ordering and inventory management.

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“With Quartzy’s connected lab platform scientists and lab managers can reach their eureka moment faster by centralizing lab management processes, improving operations efficiency, and reducing time to discovery. We’ve taken this one step further with our Scispot partnership”, said Adam Regelmann, co-founder and Chief Product Officer, Quartzy.

Quartzy and Scispot have come together to link experiments with inventory management and ordering. Now when biostartups add an inventory item in Quartzy, the item automatically syncs to Scispot’s Labsheets. Startups can then use Scispot to create an order request in Quartzy. Moreover, researchers can set up automated re-ordering when an item is used in an experiment or when the quantity falls below a specified threshold. Scispot also notifies users when reagents are running low.

“This partnership allows biostartups to integrate and automate the management of their experimental workflows and inventory all in one spot. Scientists and lab managers no longer have to worry about unexpectedly running out of reagents or wasting time reordering items,” said Satya Singh, co-founder & President, Scispot.

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