Building Resilient, Intelligent Supply Chains

Luis Sanchez, IBM Consulting’s global Oracle Supply Chain lead, examines how the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped supply chain thinking — and how AI is now accelerating that strategic shift. He frames supply chain challenges as fundamentally math problems (balancing supply, demand, cost, and speed), and explains how AI’s ability to run simulations, surface trade-off recommendations, and compress reaction time is transformative for planners. Drawing on IBM’s own complex hardware supply chain as a Client Zero example, Luis advises organizations to resist the urge to boil the ocean: start with one or two high-impact use cases, operationalize them quickly, and use those wins to build internal momentum for a broader three-to-five year AI roadmap.