5 Things Every CSCO Should Know About Generative AI

August 4, 2023

As a Chief Supply Chain Officer (CSCO) of a consumer goods company, you are no stranger to the constant pursuit of productivity, automation, and actionable insights. In this dynamic and challenging global marketplace, staying ahead of the curve is essential for driving faster and better decision-making processes. Excitement abounds as ground-breaking technology, generative AI, emerges as a game-changer for supply chain planning.

As a digital supply chain expert at Firstshift, an innovative technology company, I am equipping you with five essential insights on leveraging generative AI to accelerate and elevate your supply chain planning initiatives.

Generative AI, with its unique ability to efficiently generate new insights from both structured and unstructured data, has the potential to transform your supply chain strategy. As a seasoned expert in supply chain planning technology, cloud solutions and AI, including generative AI, Firstshift holds the key to unlocking unprecedented efficiencies and gaining valuable AI-driven insights.

As a CSCO, your role in catalyzing your company’s value proposition with generative AI is vital. And understanding its capabilities and limitations will be paramount in positioning your organization for success. So, let’s explore the five things every CSCO should know about generative AI. Armed with this knowledge, we’ll empower you to take your supply chain planning to the next level with the innovative power of generative AI.

1. Democratization of Supply Chain Insights: The natural language interpretation and generation capabilities of generative AI can make supply chain insights accessible to more participants within and outside (partners) the enterprise. Processes like Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) will benefit greatly from generative AI driven insights and the ability to explore multiple business scenarios.

2. Unleashing Unstructured Data: Generative AI’s ability to process unstructured data (documents, emails, etc.) both internal to the enterprise and external unlocks a treasure trove of insights, enabling you to extract value from previously untapped sources. The additional insights can be extremely valuable in areas like supply chain risk management and demand planning.

3. The power of Domain Specific LLMs: Foundational models like GPT-4 (short for “generative pre-trained transformer”), trained using the vast ocean of information available on the internet have shown great promise in use cases associated with content generation. Domain specific LLMs (Large Language Models) that are built by pre-training or fine tuning LLMs with domain specific content (rules, data models etc.) will certainly have a revolutionary impact on enterprise business processes including supply chain processes.

4. Generative AI Enabled Automation: Intelligent agents enabled by generative AI are starting to show promise in automating complex sequences of repetitive tasks. Experiments in this area like Auto-GPT are quickly evolving into more robust and enterprise ready agents. Supply chain processes that rely on making decisions and performing actions based on insights generated from disparate information are prime use cases for these agents.

5. Embrace the Future: View the exploration of generative AI as a mandate rather than an option. It can transform supply chain planning by enhancing data utilization, evaluating diverse business scenarios, accelerating insights, and optimizing key supply chain goals. As CSCOs, you have a crucial role in leading your organization into the future. Embrace generative AI’s transformative potential and position your company to excel in an ever-evolving supply chain landscape.

With generative AI poised to redefine supply chain processes including supply chain planning, CSCOs have an unprecedented opportunity to drive productivity, automation, and strategic insights. Armed with these five crucial insights, you are well-equipped to embrace the possibilities of generative AI and elevate your organization’s supply chain planning to new heights of success. By capitalizing on this innovative technology, you can stay ahead of the competition and revolutionize your supply chain for the better. Embrace the future with generative AI and pave the way for a more efficient and effective supply chain ecosystem.

Ready to make the smart shift?

Our innovative AI-powered platform fuels data-driven recommendations and automation to optimize your demand planning, drive customer satisfaction, and boost your bottom line. Schedule a demo to see the power of generative AI to optimize your supply chain strategy.

About Firstshift

Firstshift’s innovative supply chain planning platform leverages artificial intelligence to automate tedious tasks and provide actionable insights, that free up your valuable resources, allowing you to scale without compromising quality, overloading your team, or incurring unnecessary risks. Experience greater confidence, faster decision-making that comes from new insights, and drive your business forward. The AI-powered supply chain planning platform transforms company operations from the first shift today and into the possibilities of tomorrow. Make the smart shift.

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News

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November 19, 2025

Firstshift and Alloy.ai Partner to Bring Retail POS Data Directly into Firstshift’s AI-powered Demand Planning Platform

Newark, CA – November 19, 2025 — Firstshift, the AI-powered supply chain planning platform, announced a strategic partnership with Alloy.ai, a leading AI and data solution for consumer brands, to give consumer brands the ability to leverage direct point-of-sale (POS) and channel inventory data in their forecasting and planning processes. The partnership enables real-time demand sensing that transforms forecasting from a static process into a living, adaptive capability that aligns supply, inventory and execution with true market demand.

The partnership allows Firstshift customers to seamlessly connect to POS, inventory and pricing data across more than 400 retailers and external data providers at SKU and store-level granularity. This continuous visibility into real-time market activity helps planners detect demand shifts early, anticipate stock risks and respond faster with greater precision. Traditional planning systems and legacy tools cannot leverage POS data at this scale or speed.

“Our mission has always been to help supply chain leaders see, decide and act faster,” said Hari Menon, CEO of Firstshift. “By integrating Alloy.ai’s retail data with Firstshift’s AI-powered forecasting engine, we are giving planners a level of visibility they have never had before, right down to what is selling, where and why.”

With access to real-time POS data, Firstshift customers can improve short-term forecast accuracy by up to 50 percent, optimize replenishment and improve service levels while reducing safety stock and carrying costs. It also enhances collaboration across sales, operations and finance by providing immediate visibility into promotion performance and market shifts.

“Most demand planning still relies on historical orders and shipments, which are often noisy and don’t reflect how quickly products are actually selling,” said Joel Beal, Cofounder and CEO of Alloy.ai. “That’s why monthly or even weekly planning cycles tend to lag behind reality. Bringing POS data directly into the planning process gives teams the real-time signal they’ve been missing, helping supply stay aligned with true consumer demand.”

“The ability to sense demand continuously instead of waiting for the next S&OP cycle gives our customers a real competitive advantage,” Menon added. “Combining Alloy.ai’s data network with Firstshift’s AI-powered insights allows supply chains to move with the market, not after it.”

The integration eliminates manual data aggregation and costly middleware while ensuring that customers retain full control of their data. Alloy.ai’s normalized data feeds are continually updated and optimized for analytics, enabling Firstshift to deliver predictive and prescriptive insights for faster and more confident planning decisions.

About Firstshift

Firstshift helps supply chain leaders plan smarter and act faster through an AI-powered supply chain planning platform that delivers speed, impact and scale. Built to eliminate spreadsheets and outdated tools, Firstshift connects data across the enterprise to provide real-time visibility, predictive and prescriptive insights and flexible collaborative workflows that improve forecast accuracy and decision-making.

About Alloy.ai

Alloy.ai is an AI platform purpose-built to help consumer goods brands sell more products, save time, and solve complex supply chain challenges. Alloy.ai ingests point-of-sale data from hundreds of retailers, ecommerce partners, distributors, and a brand’s own ERP. Users can quickly surface insights and make decisions using AI, or integrate normalized, real-time data into analytics, planning, and reporting tools. Alloy.ai is trusted by companies ranging from the Fortune 500 to digital natives, including Crayola, Bic, Valvoline, RTIC, Bosch, and Melissa & Doug. Customers routinely achieve a 35%+ reduction in out-of-stocks, a 5%+ bottom-line impact, and millions in incremental retail sales.

Insights

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September 29, 2025

Why Tribal Knowledge and Spreadsheets Stall Supply Chain Growth

Every supply chain team has its heroes: the spreadsheet “wizard” who manages dozens of tabs with precision formulas, or the planner who remembers three years of seasonal patterns without looking. These people keep the business moving, but the truth is, they’re holding more responsibility than your systems can support.

When knowledge lives in individual heads and personal files, the business becomes fragile. Decisions slow down, risk multiplies, and growth is capped. Not because of talent, but because of the tools and processes surrounding them.

The Hidden Risks of Spreadsheet Dependency

Turnover risk
When a planner leaves, years of nuanced knowledge disappear with them. The spreadsheet “wizard” leaves behind customized reports, broken formulas and circular references. Recreating their models, assumptions, and workarounds can take months. Business continuity suffers, and suddenly the supply chain is in recovery mode instead of growth mode.

Error risk
Spreadsheets are powerful but brittle. A miskeyed formula, a hidden circular reference, or a forgotten update ripples across plans. These errors don’t always show up in small variances. They surface as stockouts, lost sales, or overproduction.

Speed risk
Spreadsheets are static data and seldom integrated into systems of record, like your ERP. By the time a complex spreadsheet is updated, validated, and circulated, market conditions and demand and supply constraints have already shifted. Competitors who can see and act in real time move faster, capture more revenue, and better serve customers.

How Tribal Knowledge Creates Bottlenecks

For planners: manual reconciliation, late nights before executive meetings, endless checks for formula errors, and the pressure of being the only one who truly understands the model.

For leadership: delayed visibility, limited collaboration between functions, and critical decisions dependent on a small number of people instead of a systemized, repeatable process.

The result? Growth stalls. Expansion into new markets, new channels, or new products exposes the limits of spreadsheet-based planning. Teams can’t scale, and executives can’t make bold moves with confidence.

AI Unlocks Both Speed and Scale

AI-powered demand planning platforms reduce reliance on tribal knowledge by capturing intelligence in a system, not in a single person’s head. That means:

Fewer errors, faster updates. AI-powered demand planning and automation eliminate manual reconciliations and fragile formulas, cutting risk while freeing planners for higher-value analysis.
Real-time visibility. Integrated data across ERP, sales, and operations means every function sees the same truth. No more lag time waiting for the “master spreadsheet.”
Scalable knowledge. AI learns from historical patterns and live inputs, making forecasting more accurate and demand planning more adaptive. The system gets smarter as the business grows.
Collaboration at every level. From planner to CFO, everyone works from the same platform with intuitive workflows and scenario modeling that support quick, confident decisions.

The Bottom Line

Tribal knowledge feels like an advantage until it becomes a growth ceiling or worse: a liability. If your supply chain depends on a handful of experts and spreadsheets, you’re betting your future on tools that were never designed for today’s complexity.

By shifting to AI-powered demand planning, you turn personal expertise into organizational intelligence. You de-risk turnover, reduce errors, speed up decision cycles, and give both planners and executives the visibility they need to scale with confidence. Give your experts the tools that elevate their value and ensure your business isn’t slowed down by the limits of spreadsheets.

Ready to see how fast you can move beyond spreadsheets? Book a demo.

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Insights

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June 30, 2025

Supply Chain Software Is Broken. Firstshift Is Fixing It.

For decades, supply chain software has promised transformation. The reality has been something very different: complex implementations, high costs, and systems that struggle to keep pace with business change.

Most of these platforms were designed for a different time, when supply chains moved slower, IT had complete control over enterprise systems, and planning was largely static. Fast-forward to 2025, and the world has changed dramatically. Business cycles are faster. Customer expectations are higher. And supply chains are under constant pressure to be more responsive and efficient.

And yet, the software meant to support that evolution hasn’t kept up.

The Legacy Trap: Built for Yesterday’s World

Traditional supply chain software wasn’t built for today’s pace or today’s users.

Implementations can take months or even years.
Total cost of ownership (TCO) remains high.
Adapting to business changes often means calling in consultants and waiting weeks or months for updates.

Worse, these systems are rarely built with the business user in mind. They were designed for technical experts, which creates a disconnect between those managing the supply chain and those trying to plan it. It delays decisions. It fragments workflows. And ultimately, it limits your ability to respond when it matters most.

We’ve seen technological advancements across industries like cloud computing, AI, machine learning, user-centric design. Shouldn’t supply chain planning be easier, faster, and more intuitive now?

Firstshift: Built for Agility. Powered by AI.

We didn’t try to modernize yesterday’s supply chain software. We reimagined what it could be starting from the needs of today’s businesses.

Firstshift is an AI-powered, cloud-native planning platform that brings speed, flexibility, and intelligence to the heart of your operations. It’s designed for business users, guided by real-world use cases, and built to evolve alongside your strategy.

Here’s how we’re helping companies shift forward:

Fast, Modular Deployment: Firstshift is designed for rapid time to value. Our modular platform and guided onboarding help companies go live in weeks, not months, without a heavy IT burden. We’ve seen companies go from legacy gridlock to full planning visibility in under 60 days.

Lower TCO, Higher Productivity: Our platform is built with AI at the core, automating complex planning tasks that used to require hours of human effort or external consultants. You don’t need a data science team to run Firstshift. You just need a supply chain challenge and the willingness to rethink what’s possible.

Adapt to Change Without the Red Tape: Business moves quickly. Your software should, too. Firstshift lets your team adjust plans, model scenarios, and respond to disruption in real time without submitting tickets or waiting weeks for configuration changes. Change becomes a strength, not a setback.

AI That Feels Like a Team Member: Our built-in AI copilot, Pluto, empowers planners to ask questions, run simulations, and explore insights using natural language. Pluto translates complexity into clarity, making it easier for your team to make confident, data-driven decisions every day.

Rethinking What Planning Can Be

At Firstshift, we believe the supply chain of the future requires three things:

Visibility that extends beyond your four walls
Speed that matches the pace of the market
Intelligence that adapts without added complexity

The software supporting your supply chain should amplify your team, not slow it down. That’s why we’ve focused on eliminating friction, increasing transparency, and delivering speed-to-insight across the planning process.

In a time when agility is the difference between growth and stagnation, the companies winning are those that can see clearly, plan confidently, and act decisively.

Ready to See What’s Possible?

If your current system feels like it was built for a different era, it probably was. Let us show you what a modern, AI-powered planning platform can do. Schedule your demo today and see how Firstshift makes intelligent supply chain agility simple, scalable, and finally within reach.