DC Velocity - March 2019

t h o u g ht le a d ers RANDY B RAD L EY

be coupled to your business strategy. But your approach to analytics in driving decisions should be to view it as decision analytics. Analytics gives you the vision to analyze the types of decisions you’ve made in the past and whether or not they’ve been fruitful.

QYou just made a point that I think is fascinating—to make sure your IT strategy is not in a silo serving itself but reflects the goals of the company. Let’s shift a bit to the broader topic of technology. I know it is a passion of yours. A lot has happened in the last 10 years, and a lot has changed. What is your short list of some of the most important or disruptive technologies that have emerged in the supply chain in the past decade?

AI think that we’re now embrac- ing artificial intelligence to the degree that we really
should. And a lot of times, we use the terms “artificial
intelligence” and “machine learning” interchangeably,
but the reality is, machine learning is a subset of artificial
intelligence, or AI. We used to talk about “hard AI” and
“soft AI.” Machine learning is that soft AI, where the
programs learn to do things that you never instructed
them to do.

I think we now have the computational power, we have the storage capabilities, and we have more data coming, so we can truly feed those appliances. It’s what’s hot now, and I think that is what is going to carry us for the next 10 years. I think we are going to get true insights because we are now finally able to harness the power of something that was created back in the ’60s.

QWhat are some other technolo- gies that you think are going to go from promise to application in the next three to five years?

AI think we will see blockchain. I really do. A lot of people are interested in blockchain. But when I say we’re going to see promise with respect to that, I think we are going to truly realize what it can and can’t do. I think we are also going to realize where we should and where we shouldn’t use it. To me, once we get that level of clarity, that is when I think solutions start to become more tangible.