Kearney, Aera Team for Supply Chain Resilience

February 11, 2021

Global consultancy Kearney started a collaboration with cognitive automation company Aera Technology to improve enterprise agility and resiliency for companies worldwide. Through the partnership, Kearney's Sense and Pivot supply chain management solution will be integrated into Aera Technology's cloud-based Cognitive Operating System, further improving the speed and agility of decision-making in supply chains.

Kearney's research into supply chain resilience has found that the top two priorities for businesses emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic have been the ability to adapt to changing demand and to better manage risk, especially in industries with highly complex supply chains such as industrials, healthcare and automotive.

Powered by Aera Technology's Cognitive Operating System, Kearney's Sense and Pivot solution helps companies adapt to demand volatility and evolving expectations in an unpredictable operating environment. It enables a near real-time view of the market, improved cross-functional collaboration, and the ability to offer intelligent trade-off decisions between cost, service, and working capital.

In today's market, having an effective supply chain can often be the competitive differentiator for a business. A Kearney e-commerce client recently reported a 2-4% top-line cost saving using the Sense and Pivot system, while a leading pharmacy retailer saw a 5% uptick in inventory productivity.

"When it comes to supply chain management, there are many variables to consider, but the key is to balance cost, service level and resiliency," said Suketu Gandhi, partner in the Digital Transformation practice at Kearney. "Our partnership with Aera Technology will mean that companies can achieve this goal by anticipating disruptions more effectively and implementing contingency plans with ease."

With vast amounts of data now available to businesses, real-time decisions are now possible. As global supply chains and trade flows are being disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical shifts, organisations need cognitive automation to gain the business agility required to react to a fast-changing environment. The Aera Cognitive Operating System is the only platform that can turn the vast amounts of transactional data accumulating every second into optimal decisions across the enterprise that are implemented instantly and automatically.

"There's never been a more important time to create an agile supply chain that can meet volume spikes, scale up or down assets and adjust service levels," added Mr. Gandhi. "We're thrilled to be working with Aera Technology to help businesses future-proof their supply chains."

"We've worked with the world's largest organizations to demonstrate the value of cognitive automation at scale," said Frederic Laluyaux, CEO of Aera Technology. "By integrating Kearney's supply chain capabilities with Aera's proven Cognitive Operating System, we are excited to extend this to an even wider range of companies with our strategic partnership with Kearney."

"Kearney's incredible leadership, breadth, and depth of expertise and experience will accelerate time to value of cognitive automation in the supply chain and beyond," he added.