TBW ADVISORS LLC

Tag: digital transformation

  • Whisper Report: How can we integrate AI-driven customer service solutions with our existing IT infrastructure?

    Whisper Report: How can we integrate AI-driven customer service solutions with our existing IT infrastructure?

    Published to clients: July 3, 2025                                            ID: 2079

    Published to Readers: July 4, 2025

    Email Whispers Released: August 11, 2025 8am

    Public and Video Edition Released: August 11, 2025 11am

    Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

    Abstract:

    “Integrating AI customer service with existing IT systems starts by setting clear business goals. AI should enhance, not disrupt, current workflows and streamline real-time support. Every organization has unique systems, so tailored integration is essential. A major challenge is fragmented data—making robust pipelines and clean, synchronized data critical. Accurate timestamps and system compatibility across platforms are key to ensuring effective AI performance and a smooth digital transformation journey.”

    Target Audience Titles:

    • Chief Information Officer, Chief Technology Officer, VP/Director of IT Operations, Enterprise Architects
    • Chief Customer Officer, VP/Director of Customer Services/Success, Contact Center Operation Managers
    • Solution Architects, DevOps & IT Administrators, Customer Support Agents, Data Scientists and ML Engineers

    Key Takeaways

    • Start with clear business goals so AI enhances workflows without causing disruptions.
    • Tailor integration to your unique tech environment to avoid inefficiencies.
    • Reliable, clean, and synchronized data pipelines are essential for effective AI-driven customer service.

    How can we integrate AI-driven customer service solutions with our existing IT infrastructure?

    We took the most frequently asked and most urgent technology questions straight to the technologists gathering at Customer Connect Expo 2025 held at the Las Vegas Convention Center. This Whisper Report addresses the question regarding how can we integrate AI-driven customer service solutions with our existing IT infrastructure? As Ford’s Dr. Kalifa Oliver shared, “first we need to break down our needs and our goals and figure out which pieces of AI actually build efficiencies in our IT systems because right now there are too many systems that are fragmented.” With ALL AI projects, it is best to start with the business goal not the technology. We do not want to spend resources to integrate technology that goes unused. Furthermore, the context of the business goal helps guide engineers when they have design choices to make.

    Customer Service Workflows

    AI in Customer Service is all about optimizing and improving the customer service workflow to lead to maximum customer satisfaction. As Zaon’s Jason Kaufman shared, “using artificial intelligence tools within the organization to actually help drive and make more efficient the processes that go into place in order to support good customer service. For example, leveraging artificial intelligence to actually analyze chats real time community forums real time. Actually monitoring that (the communities) helping to gain insights about what your customers have questions about so that you can leverage the AI to actually generate the knowledge on the fly to actually provide that (information removing confusion) back to them real time as if it’s another person on that community thread.” The nonobvious challenge in achieving this solution is best described by Claritiv’s CEO Sean Gigremoss. “Everybody has workflows. Every company is unique. What tools do they use? What products do they use now?  Do we need to build it?” In other words, every organization has a unique, highly mixed environment with varying degrees of maturity both in the technology itself and the organization’s ability to deploy technology.

    Verse.ai’s Zac Brooksher recommends focusing on complimenting the current workflows and processing. “We can integrate AI driven customer service solutions using full funnel metrics understanding all of the conversations the timestamps the channels the appropriate team members what next steps are all integrating into existing systems and processes just to complement what the current workflows and data processing is today like.” Any technology not realizing it is complimenting an existing process will instead create process interrupts. The distinction really is a big difference.

    The Challenge: Data is everywhere!

    As Claritiv’s Sean Gigremoss shared, data is everywhere! “They make it so easy for us to integrate because in the end that’s important because all the data are in this different .. disparate systems. You need information from Salesforce you need information from zoom you need information from slack you need information from your database you need information from your customer’s database so to be able to do that you need to make sure that you’re using the tools or you’re partnering with companies that help you so that you can focus on what you do best.”

    But the data isn’t just everywhere, it comes from everywhere. The first obvious location was shared by Enthu.ai’s Atul Grover, “we integrate with the telephony at the dialer.” And the rest such as the web and email communications, “we ingest that using an API driven environment.” Diabolocom specializes in capturing all that occurs between the customer and the organization on mobile devices. As Diabolocom’s Benjamin Shakespeare shared, “with our mobile solution that we are about to release

    the market  .. So all field reps anybody who is using a cell phone today with every interaction they have on their phone our AI will then score that call transcribe it and push it directly into the CRM So any lack of compliance that you are seeing today in your organization from people that are not sitting behind a computer that will be no longer.”

    Where the magic happens!

    Now that we understand we are complimenting the existing customer experience workflows for the benefit of the customer experience and that data is everywhere, what can we do?  As Macy’s Siva Kannan Ganensan shared, “you need to make sure your data pipeline is very robust when we talk about all this AI integration data is the core so make sure the data is cleansed and always readily available ready to serve with that we’ll be able to integrate an into your existing architecture or in your organization.”

    workflow pictured above a data fabric with robust data pipelines

    Figure 1. Compliment Workflows & Leverage Robus Data Fabric

    It’s all about the data infrastructure! You need robust data pipelines as part of your data fabric to seamlessly integrate any new AI offering as depicted in Figure 1. AND you must ensure data quality. For example, data quality is paramount when dealing with timestamps of customer communications. What time zone is your organizational standard? Do your IT systems work in that time zone, and do you know what systems provide timestamps in other formats or time zones? Is that true for any and all corporate acquisitions feeding data into the system? Is the system designed to handle the variety of daylight savings time scenarios? Are all the clocks adjusted for daylight savings automatically or manually? Finally, are the timestamp clocks aligned? To the second or to the minute?  It’s valuable to know if you can look at time as fact or approximation in your organization. If your organization is going through any type of digital transformation, it is critical to get the best advice available to ensure your success. Ensure your success by scheduling your inquiry with a TBW Advisors advisor before starting any critical phase of your digital transformation journey. Get the smartest advice available and leverage our firsthand experience to your advantage.

    Related playlists

    1. Whisper Report: How can we integrate AI-driven customer service solutions with our existing IT infrastructure
    2. Conference Whispers: Customer Connect Expo 2025

    Corporate Headquarters

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    Henderson, NV 89052

    ©2019-2025 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.

  • Whisper Report: What are the biggest challenges of using generative AI in logistics?

    Whisper Report: What are the biggest challenges of using generative AI in logistics?

    Published to clients: April 28, 2025                                                            ID: 2058

    Published to Readers: April 29, 2025

    Published to Email Whispers: May 8, 2025

    Public: May 9, 2025

    Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

    Abstract:

    The logistics and supply chain sector faces significant challenges with data. Issues include non-existent data, inconsistent formats, manual errors, and lack of historical context. These problems stem from complex processes and resistance to change. Human-machine interaction adds another layer of complexity. Generic AI models struggle due to the unique demands of logistics. Despite these hurdles, there are opportunities for generative AI to enhance efficiency and provide valuable insights. Successful implementation requires accurate, context-rich data and a willingness to transform processes. Embracing AI can lead to improved operations and better decision-making in the logistics industry.

    Target Audience Titles:

    • Chief Supply Chain, Logistics Officer, Procurement, Technology, and Data Officers
    • Supply Chain, Logistics, Procurement, Technology, BI

    and Data Science Directors

    • ERP Specialist, Supply Chain IT, Data Scientists, BI and related managers

    Key Takeaways

    • Inconsistent, incomplete, and manually entered data hinder AI’s effectiveness.
    • Poorly structured processes and a reluctance to adopt AI-driven solutions slow innovation.
    • Onboarding new suppliers and standardizing systems remains difficult.
    • Generic AI models don’t understand logistics-specific challenges.
    Strategy rating 3 Tech depth 1

    Biggest challenge using Generative AI in Logistics??

    We took the most frequently asked and most urgent questions straight to the logistics and supply chain experts in the industry. This Whisper Report addresses the question regarding the biggest challenges using generative AI in supply chain and logistics. The first challenge, however, is not unique to that industry nor is it unique to generative AI. This challenge applies to a all analysis and analytics including all forms of AI – generative or not regardless the size of the models. Put simply, no matter how many ways you state it, when you put garbage data in you will get garbage results.

    Tom Larson with ITS Logistics “bad inputs in = bad outputs.”

    Balaji Gunter with Hoptek, “case of garbage in garbage out.”

    Blake Donaldson with Nutrabolt, “quality of information.”

    Obrie Scarborough with Wolley Digital Innovations, “good in good out.”

    Jacob Hobbs with Cubiscan, “you are only as good as your data.”

    Additional research on technology available to help with getting and cleaning data in supply chain and logistics is available in Conference Whispers: Manifest 2025 and Conference Whispers: Smart Retail Tech Expo.

    Challenges Unique to Logistics and Supply chain?

    Given the dominance of a common answer, this raises the question, is the sector of logistics and supply chain in worse shape versus other industries? More specifically, is the data itself within logistics and supply chain the problem and if so, why? Put simply and as depicted in Figure 1, the challenges go far beyond the data. As Don Addington of Cloud 9 Perception put it, “in logistics space there is a level of complexity that is more complex than others.” These complexities come in for the following reasons.

    Figure 1. Challenges using Generative AI in logistics

    Data doesn’t exist

    There is an ideal digital world which is very different from the physical world. As Owen Nicholson from Slamcore pointed out, “If you are not seeing real world deployments with all the gnarly things that go wrong you are only creating idealized models that don’t work in the real world.” Distribution centers are full of human and robot workers as well as machines from multiple manufacturers. Unlike construction, many of these machines are in the same building they entered at the start of their usefulness as brand new machines long before generative AI term existed. Logistics is not the neat and tidy world of fintech transactions.

    Data is inconsistent

    As Ben Tracy of Vizion pointed out, “(many) skipped a few fundament steps, being useful and being reliable…  They don’t monitor data quality, they don’t have consistency amongst data formats, and their systems are not exportable for the data that is inside of them.” Or what data professionals call it- ‘good old fashioned data quality’. To put it in the simplest terms possible, we all learned early in elementary school you need data in the same units to perform any math over the data. You do not add inches and feet together. You cannot add meters and feet together. You don’t speak globally about time without time zones. But perhaps most important, you cannot create data quality nor can you analyze data you haven’t or cannot export.

    Data is manual and miss-keyed

    If you are wondering how bad that data can be, Dawn Favier of Green Screens provided some hard facts, “its not uncommon to flag 35% of their (customers) data as dirty. Dirty meaning miss-keyed data, something tagged as full truck load when its partial.” Obviously, if one looked at data for a half truck and leveraged for a full truck, the resulting analytics are useless. With 35% of one’s data being dirty, there is work involved before you can even hope for insights.

    Data lacks historical context
    For any AI to be successful, you need massive amounts of data over a very small problem so the mathematics behind the AI can provide useful information. As Atit Shah of Chetu explained, “

    Even if you have the right collection of data, you can generate incorrect forecasting. A lot of people do not have a huge history or the history of the records so they go into the gen AI because everyone is doing it but it doesn’t meet their expectation.“ No matter how powerful the technology, all forms of AI need good data. Furthermore, the data must have context to be useful for any advance form of AI including generative AI.

    Bad Processes
    One obvious reason for messy data is the messy, manual, and imprecise or undefined processes it represents. The biggest challenge as Bill Driegert of Flexport shared, is simply, “not slapping it (generative AI) on bad processes. There needs to be a lot of process engineering required to leverage AI.”  If process re-engineering and establishing a clean data fabric is your organizations Mt. Everest, TBW Advisors LLC offers a lot of first-hand experience and expertise to teams and executive via inquiry. Any clients at this phase should schedule an inquiry to receive guidance. We will set up a plan of inquiries during your journey to give you any guidance we may have or can gather to assist you. The plan will cover milestones including but not limited to strategy reviews, presentation reviews, and architecture reviews. It is not an area to go through without a guide on your side even if the work is outsourced.

    Resistant to change

    It is always important to consider the culture of any organization when executing or desire to execute change management. As Erica Frank of Optimal Dynamics put it, “need to take a healthy assessment, how resistant are we to change, how are we going to challenge this from the top down.”  As with any change management, executive buy-in with a business objective are critical to success. AI for the sake of AI is always a bad idea.

    Perhaps the reason many in this space are resistant to change is the change is constant. As Jason Augustine of WNS put it, “Environment keeps changing every 3-6 months”. Thus discovering opportunities to align and integrate the transformational changes into these already occurring network constant changes is a less tumultuous approach.

    Human Machine Interaction

    Logistics, like manufacturing and construction, has a lot of machines in the loop. Those machines may or may not be intelligent machines. Thus as Dr. Mario Bjelonic of Rivr.ai shared, “the challenge will come up in terms of how the humans and robots will act as a team together.” Optimizing the total solution over this shared space is the true goal. But as one organization is optimized, what about working between each organization?

    As Justin Liu from Alibaba.com stated, “biggest challenge what it can do and what it cannot do

    is the on boarding suppliers cannot be done by AI”. That’s correct. Bringing each and every machine into the system, or each and every supplier and the complex of array of data that that suppliers managed to coalesce together IS ITSELF NOT standardized thus cannot be automated.

    Can’t use Generic Gen AI

    As Balaji Guntur of Hoptek pointed out, “Most of the models are very generalized.” “AI is data hungry, and you need to train it on real data. The biggest challenge Generative AI in logistics is that the generative models don’t know what logistics is doing. This is the main challenge,” Aviv Castro, Sensos. In summary, as best put by Nykaj Nair of Sugere, “you need data highly accurate data that is relative to the companies supply chain.”

    Opportunities for Generative AI in Logistics

    With all the challenges discussed, it may seem discouraging. It is important to realize the significant opportunity awaits thus easily providing business justification for the work to transform – carefully. As Justin Liu of Alibaba.com put it, “we are continuously adopting AI into our workflow into our latest and greatest features and functionalities to do their business more efficiently.” Rye Akervik of Shipsi believes the value is, “in adding it as a first layer to understand the (customer) issue.” Mick Oliver of Dexory shared, “We don’t see it as a challenge we see it as an opportunity and provide insights based on that data.” Rich Krul of Hoplite observed that the intelligent systems are, “way more efficient, people get their answers a little faster and thinks that is a good thing for the industry.” Most importantly as Georgy Melkonyan of Arnata pointed out, “Shouldn’t fear it (AI) is going to take your job, ai will not replace your job. The people that use ai are going to replace your job.”

    *When vendors’ names or quotes are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference or what we heard doing our research, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document.

    Related Research and Playlist

    1. Whisper Report: How can we manage tariff costs in our supply chain?
    2. Whisper Report: What are the biggest challenges of using generative AI in logistics?
    3. Conference Whispers: Smart Retail Logistics Expo
    4. Conference Whispers: Manifest 2025

    Corporate Headquarters

    2884 Grand Helios Way

    Henderson, NV 89052

    ©2019-2025 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.

  • Conference Whispers: ISC West 2025

    Conference Whispers: ISC West 2025

    Las Vegas, NV March 31-April 4

    Published to clients: April 7, 2025         ID: TBW2069  

    Published to readers: April 8, 2025           

    Published to Email Whispers: July 28, 2025 12pm.

    Publicly Published with video edition: July 28. 2025 2pm.   

    Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

    Abstract:

    After capturing almost 50 videos, over 150 minutes of content and countless shorts forthcoming, our coverage of ISC West 2025 closes. Attendees gathered for ISC West 2025 held in Las Vegas March 31-April 4. The event featured innovations in video surveillance, driver-assisted systems, palm vein identity solutions, edge AI, and gunshot detection. Exhibits included AI vision, camera intelligence, and layered security solutions. TBW Advisors was able to capture exclusive content from the live sessions as well as full details on top products at exclusive Press Briefings.

    Cautions

    • ISC West offers the option to print your badge at home. It is important to note that you not only need your badge holder and lanyard on site, but you still must wait in the registration line. Specifically, you must present and verify your ID to get a sticker on your badge for it to be useful. IF you only snag the badge holder, you will land up back at the long registration lines.

    Conference Vibe

    Our coverage of ISC West 2025 includes over 38 videos and over 150 minutes of video content spanning session summaries, product overviews, and answers to three urgent questions. There will be countless shorts forthcoming so save the entire Conference Whispers: ISC West 2025 playlists by clicking on the book mark symbol. Registration was quite interesting for the x attendees as one could print the badge at home but still required face to face registration to get the validation sticker. Held at Venetian, the customary Venetian Café Presse was open as well as the Venetian Food Marketplaces within expo hall if you got hungry. The event seemed to exceptionally crowded as you can feel as all waited for expo* hall to open and was loud enough to trigger a 100db warning on my watch. Upon clearing security, endless exhibits featuring massive amounts of vision AI,  AI video analysis, IoT sensor data, and complex security identity solutions bridging the physical and cyber worlds.

    While at ISC West, we conducted research for three forthcoming Whisper Reports for our clients. The playlists are unlisted but available and will eventually fill in with the video version of the report so you may wish to bookmark these playlists.

    1. Whisper Report: How can we enhance our cybersecurity measures to protect against emerging threats?  
    2. Whisper Report: What are the best practices for integrating AI and machine learning into our security systems?
    3. Whisper Report: How can we ensure compliance with new and evolving security regulations?

    Sessions and Press Event

    We are excited to share that we have two exclusive pieces of content where the presenters gave a special overview just for TBW Advisors LLC, our clients, and subscribers. First, we have the session by Intel RealSense. This session focused on the combination the long history in vision and the long history of AI together to successfully create the current generation of facial recognition for the purpose of useful Identity and Access Management via the biometric field of one’s face. Keep in mind, data representing one’s face is PII or personally identifiable information. While not healthcare, the protection of PII requires the same care as all PII data as discussed during our coverage of Conference Whispers: HIMSS 25.

    The second session summary we were also treated to includes a look at when cyber and physical security combine. Operations and IT coordinating to achieve a business function is quite common. As anyone who has been a corporate CIO in an organization with physical buildings knows, security is security. Physical security must interface with IT systems to understand who is permitted to do what. Historically, if physical security fails, IT systems are always at a higher risk due to information being left around or the increased attack surfaces made available via the ability to physically access a network terminal or a server itself depending on the organization. In 2025, the rush to get data from everything connected to survive the pandemic or to rush ahead with AI solutions has increased possible attack surfaces. The confluence of these scenarios together has made the Cyber Physical Security practice space blossom so expect to hear and see a lot more in this space for the foreseeable future.

    Whenever given the chance, we try to bring unique content and details about the companies at the conferences to you. At ISC West we were able to attend a special, press only event held by Taiwan Excellence better known as Taitra. Taitra’s mission is to help spread the word around the world about innovations coming out of Taiwan by featuring some of their companies. The editor in Chief for Security Today Magazine, Ralph Jensen also spoke at this event to kick it off. We were able to capture the full 10-minute presentations for each of the 6 technologies featured!

    The first technology featured is Cyberlink. Cyberlink provides extensive video surveillance capabilities including the ability to successfully track people. In the event of a violent attack or a lost child, finding the desired human being from all the surveillance video available can be quite timely without the right technology. Cyberlink’s people tracking works even if the face is not visible on the video through posture, clothing, or body movement signature.

    Advanced driver-assisted systems (ADAS) are popular in automobiles but for larger vehicles it is still newer due to the complexity and size of semi-trucks. EverFocus gave the press an in-depth overview of their current solution including the company’s success in obtaining many Taiwan and global certifications enabling deployment.

    The third technology presented at the event was Himax with their palm vein identity solution. As this contactless solution works even if a surgeon has scrubbed for surgery and put on their two pairs of surgical gloves, this technology could have easily been featured at HIMSS25 or Identiverse. Himax is not only known for their palm vein identity solution but also for their ultralow power AI processor that runs their solution and is available on the market as WiseEye.

    The fourth and fifth companies presenting both featured edge solutions. Kneron featured a general-purpose secure full stack edge AI solution that support AI services at the edge for a large variety of use cases. One example is combing standard RGB video with thermal camera information for a cohesive image to properly identity living beings or animals in the camera’s view. Likewise, Vivotek specializes in IP Surveillance solutions including network cameras, network video recorders (NVRs) and related software solutions and accessories.

    Exhibits

    The product mix set at ISC West is interesting as it spans AI vision, Camera Intelligence, surveillance, and identity. Let’s start with the best in show new product two-time award winner, Vaidio. Vaidio provides an AI vision platform leveraging their deep AI expertise. Their belief is you should be able to point a camera at anything and make it safer. Safr is a vision AI solution focuses on facial recognition and liveness verification for live video including watchlist alarms. We also had an extensive booth tour by Intel RealSense. As you can see, their solution is quite easy to integrate for developers. Enrolment is quite simple. Their chip/software solution is integrated into many of the products on the floor. They also provided a live demonstration of their solution in action. If you are famous or a high NetWorth  individual and you are not comfortable with your personal identity or other information floating around the web, 360 Privacy was there with their solution.

    Advancis is 30-year-old company that provides a one-stop identity solution that focuses on integrating as many hardware devises as possible. It currently can integrate with over 550 hardware devices on which it can capture and verify credentials. They add support for approximately 30 devices each year. Also playing in the Physical Identity and Access Management (PIAM) space is RightCrowd. RightCrowd specializes in complex scenarios for organizations with many employees, many visitors across many locations. For those seeking a PIAM solution leveraging facial recognition or fingerprints, Bioconnect might be on your radar. Bioconnect integrates with the top 8 IAM platforms in the market. For a layered security approach, dormakaba provided TBW Advisors LLC with an exclusive booth tour walking through their offering and various layers. If any of the biometric or other identity information needs to be put on a secure card with any of the contact and contactless embedded technology, Dascom was on site. Their printer can securely hold up to 200 finished product cards until a batch is completed and retrieved.

    Diving more into the physical security aspects, LVT provides a mobile security unit that is rapidly deployable. LVT’s low power solution leverages cellular connectivity and high scalability for future proofing its deployment. Underneath the surface, LVT leverage the latest in agentic AI capabilities within its solution to provide these advanced capabilities. Another agentic AI solution that

    stops threats without human intervention based on video surveillance, Spot.ai might be on your radar. As an Agentic AI solution, Spot.ai not only detects an issue but can automatically handle the threat in 90% of the cases. Specifically, the solution will automatically be able to execute things like intimidating announcements, spotlights on, and following the potential threat as well as turn on sirens. The solution notifies a humans if the automation determents fail.

    Finally, if safety and security means identification of a gun shot and its source, Databuoy was on hand. With technology funded by DARPA, their solution is just as effective in your closest metropolitan area as it is in a urban combat.

    Next Year’s Conference  

    ISC West 2026 conference will once again be held at the Venetian in Las Vegas, Nevada. The dates are yet to be announced for 2026.

    *When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.

    ©2019-2025 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.

  • Whisper Report: How can AI be effectively integrated into healthcare systems?

    Whisper Report: How can AI be effectively integrated into healthcare systems?

    Published to clients: April 28, 2025                                                            ID: 2062

    Published to Readers: April 29, 2025

    Published to Email Whispers: May 8, 2025

    Public: May 9, 2025

    Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

    Abstract:

    To effectively integrate AI into healthcare, focus on three key areas: risk, impact, and value. Achieving a Patient 360 view requires orchestrating various tools. AI is embedded in many healthcare solutions including those for asset location, employee safety, and security. Always have a strategy to integrate AI into workflows. Successful integration depends on strong partnerships and clear communication about AI capabilities and limitations.

    Target Audience Titles:

    • Chief Supply Chain, Logistics Officer, Procurement, Technology, and Data Officers
    • Supply Chain, Logistics, Procurement, Technology, BI and Data Science Directors
    • ERP Specialist, Supply Chain IT, Data Scientists, BI and related managers

    Key Takeaways

    Generic AI models don’t understand logistics-specific challenges.

    Inconsistent, incomplete, and manually entered data hinder AI’s effectiveness.

    Poorly structured processes and a reluctance to adopt AI-driven solutions slow innovation.

    Onboarding new suppliers and standardizing systems remains difficult.

    Biggest challenge using Generative AI in Logistics??

    We took the most frequently asked and most urgent questions straight to the logistics and supply chain experts in the industry. This Whisper Report addresses the question regarding the biggest challenges using generative AI in supply chain and logistics. The first challenge, however, is not unique to that industry nor is it unique to generative AI. This challenge applies to a all analysis and analytics including all forms of AI – generative or not regardless the size of the models. Put simply, no matter how many ways you state it, when you put garbage data in you will get garbage results.

    Tom Larson with ITS Logistics “bad inputs in = bad outputs.”

    Balaji Gunter with Hoptek, “case of garbage in garbage out.”

    Blake Donaldson with Nutrabolt, “quality of information.”

    Obrie Scarborough with Wolley Digital Innovations, “good in good out.”

    Jacob Hobbs with Cubiscan, “you are only as good as your data.”

    Additional research on technology available to help with getting and cleaning data in supply chain and logistics is available in Conference Whispers: Manifest 2025 and Conference Whispers: Smart Retail Tech Expo.

    Challenges Unique to Logistics and Supply chain?

    Given the dominance of a common answer, this raises the question, is the sector of logistics and supply chain in worse shape versus other industries? More specifically, is the data itself within logistics and supply chain the problem and if so, why? Put simply and as depicted in Figure 1, the challenges go far beyond the data. As Don Addington of Cloud 9 Perception put it, “in logistics space there is a level of complexity that is more complex than others.” These complexities come in for the following reasons.

    Data doesn’t exist

    There is an ideal digital world which is very different from the physical world. As Owen Nicholson from Slamcore pointed out, “If you are not seeing real world deployments with all the gnarly things that go wrong you are only creating idealized models that don’t work in the real world.” Distribution centers are full of human and robot workers as well as machines from multiple manufacturers. Unlike construction, many of these machines are in the same building they entered at the start of their usefulness as brand new machines long before generative AI term existed. Logistics is not the neat and tidy world of fintech transactions.

    Data is inconsistent

    As Ben Tracy of Vizion pointed out, “(many) skipped a few fundament steps, being useful and being reliable…  They don’t monitor data quality, they don’t have consistency amongst data formats, and their systems are not exportable for the data that is inside of them.” Or what data professionals call it- ‘good old fashioned data quality’. To put it in the simplest terms possible, we all learned early in elementary school you need data in the same units to perform any math over the data. You do not add inches and feet together. You cannot add meters and feet together. You don’t speak globally about time without time zones. But perhaps most important, you cannot create data quality nor can you analyze data you haven’t or cannot export.

    Data is manual and miss-keyed

    If you are wondering how bad that data can be, Dawn Favier of Green Screens provided some hard facts, “its not uncommon to flag 35% of their (customers) data as dirty. Dirty meaning miss-keyed data, something tagged as full truck load when its partial.” Obviously, if one looked at data for a half truck and leveraged for a full truck, the resulting analytics are useless. With 35% of one’s data being dirty, there is work involved before you can even hope for insights.

    Data lacks historical context
    For any AI to be successful, you need massive amounts of data over a very small problem so the mathematics behind the AI can provide useful information. As Atit Shah of Chetu explained, “

    Even if you have the right collection of data, you can generate incorrect forecasting. A lot of people do not have a huge history or the history of the records so they go into the gen AI because everyone is doing it but it doesn’t meet their expectation.“ No matter how powerful the technology, all forms of AI need good data. Furthermore, the data must have context to be useful for any advance form of AI including generative AI.

    Bad Processes
    One obvious reason for messy data is the messy, manual, and imprecise or undefined processes it represents. The biggest challenge as Bill Driegert of Flexport shared, is simply, “not slapping it (generative AI) on bad processes. There needs to be a lot of process engineering required to leverage AI.”  If process re-engineering and establishing a clean data fabric is your organizations Mt. Everest, TBW Advisors LLC offers a lot of first-hand experience and expertise to teams and executive via inquiry. Any clients at this phase should schedule an inquiry to receive guidance. We will set up a plan of inquiries during your journey to give you any guidance we may have or can gather to assist you. The plan will cover milestones including but not limited to strategy reviews, presentation reviews, and architecture reviews. It is not an area to go through without a guide on your side even if the work is outsourced.

    Resistant to change

    It is always important to consider the culture of any organization when executing or desire to execute change management. As Erica Frank of Optimal Dynamics put it, “need to take a healthy assessment, how resistant are we to change, how are we going to challenge this from the top down.”  As with any change management, executive buy-in with a business objective are critical to success. AI for the sake of AI is always a bad idea.

    Perhaps the reason many in this space are resistant to change is the change is constant. As Jason Augustine of WNS put it, “Environment keeps changing every 3-6 months”. Thus discovering opportunities to align and integrate the transformational changes into these already occurring network constant changes is a less tumultuous approach.

    Human Machine Interaction

    Logistics, like manufacturing and construction, has a lot of machines in the loop. Those machines may or may not be intelligent machines. Thus as Dr. Mario Bjelonic of Rivr.ai shared, “the challenge will come up in terms of how the humans and robots will act as a team together.” Optimizing the total solution over this shared space is the true goal. But as one organization is optimized, what about working between each organization?

    As Justin Liu from Alibaba.com stated, “biggest challenge what it can do and what it cannot do

    is the on boarding suppliers cannot be done by AI”. That’s correct. Bringing each and every machine into the system, or each and every supplier and the complex of array of data that that suppliers managed to coalesce together IS ITSELF NOT standardized thus cannot be automated.

    Can’t use Generic Gen AI

    As Balaji Guntur of Hoptek pointed out, “Most of the models are very generalized.” “AI is data hungry, and you need to train it on real data. The biggest challenge Generative AI in logistics is that the generative models don’t know what logistics is doing. This is the main challenge,” Aviv Castro, Sensos. In summary, as best put by Nykaj Nair of Sugere, “you need data highly accurate data that is relative to the companies supply chain.”

    Opportunities for Generative AI in Logistics

    With all the challenges discussed, it may seem discouraging. It is important to realize the significant opportunity awaits thus easily providing business justification for the work to transform – carefully. As Justin Liu of Alibaba.com put it, “we are continuously adopting AI into our workflow into our latest and greatest features and functionalities to do their business more efficiently.” Rye Akervik of Shipsi believes the value is, “in adding it as a first layer to understand the (customer) issue.” Mick Oliver of Dexory shared, “We don’t see it as a challenge we see it as an opportunity and provide insights based on that data.” Rich Krul of Hoplite observed that the intelligent systems are, “way more efficient, people get their answers a little faster and thinks that is a good thing for the industry.” Most importantly as Georgy Melkonyan of Arnata pointed out, “Shouldn’t fear it (AI) is going to take your job, ai will not replace your job. The people that use ai are going to replace your job.”

    *When vendors’ names or quotes are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference or what we heard doing our research, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document.  

    Related playlists

    1. Whisper Report: How can AI be effectively integrated into healthcare systems?
    2. Conference Whispers: HIMSS 2025

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    ©2019-2025 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.

  • Conference Whispers: HIMSS 2025

    Conference Whispers: HIMSS 2025

    Las Vegas, NV March 3-6

    Published to clients: March 10, 2025

    Published to readers: March 11, 2025                   

    Published to Email Whispers: June 18, 2025

    Publicly Published with video edition: June 19, 2025

    Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photojournalist(s): D. Doreen Galli

    ABSTRACT

    The gathering of Health Information and Management Systems Society, 2025 HIMSS Global Health Conference and Exhibition or HIMSS 2025 allowed over 28,000 attendees from 88 countries to gather. Discussions revolved around the pursuit of global health equity, the impact of digitization on revenue growth, and the importance of security in healthcare technology. Thought-provoking questions were raised about common household medical devices, and innovative solutions to improve patient access and operational efficiency were highlighted. The event centers on the intersection of technology and healthcare, emphasizing the need for secure, efficient, and patient-focus approaches to modern medical challenge.

    The Conference

    • The 2025 HIMSS Global Health Conference and Exhibition or HIMSSS 2025 saw over 28,000 attendees gathered with a net gain of over 2,000 attendees from the previous year.
    • The event spanned the Sands convention center at Venetian as well as leveraged the connector bridge and all of Caesars Forum.
    • Attendees titles spanned clinician, IT director, Chief Medical Officer, founder, investor, security analyst, to Chief Privacy officer.

    Cautions

    • At HIMSS the entire expo hall is treated as a patient operating room from a privacy perspective. Thus, if you want press coverage of any type, one must have executed all planning before the start of HIMSS. Press was not allowed to walk up and film attendees without prior authorization. Many first timers at HIMSS were caught off guard by this aspect.

    TAGS:

    ACH payments, aries fraud, aries fraud solutoins, consumer finance, drivers license, fintech, FM25, Fraud, Gitlab, Identiverse, Incentive.ai, Intellicheck, Interface.ai, Money 20/20, MoneyLion, Onbe, OnFido, payments, phone intelligence, Provenir, risk decisioning, Security Metrics, socure, Thetaray, Wysh

    Conference Vibe

    Every event has their own personality and HIMSS 2025, the conference for Health Information and Management Systems Society or HIMSS annual gathering is no different. In Healthcare, data privacy is not just about protecting data. As attendees regularly shared, health data represents a patient’s whole body, a patient’s being, a patient’s life history, the data represents the patient’s life – not to mention individuals can be fined for making mistakes. Thus, one might expect, HIMSS25 was a very, very private conference. A huge no cameras sign welcomed all to the expo hall and Press were required to be prebriefed and reminded multiple times, no advance permission, no video. As a point of comparison, our video to time on site ratio was 50% of what we were able to achieve at CES. Nonetheless, we were able to work with the system and bring you a whopping 37 videos and over 110 minutes of video, endless shorts to enjoy, and research for 4 different research documents including this one. The Conference Whispers: HIMSS 2025 playlist is available on our channel for you to enjoy.

    HIMSS welcomed 28,000 attendees to see more than X exhibits and y sessions with over Z startups represented. The energy was quite high as all awaited the show’s opening and the registration lines moved quickly. The Sphere, right next door, even put on a wild psychedelic show to welcome all. Finally, the moment arrived all were waiting for when the Expo Hall Opened. Food could be found for purchase at both locations. The Venetian had their Bistro open with multiple locations throughout the event. Much like SEMA, the Venetian Expo leveraged the bridge connecting it to Caesars Forum which also hosted HIMSS. For those that were at Caesar’s Forum, food was available at the café known as cash-concessions.

    We were able to conduct research for three forthcoming Whisper Reports for our clients. The playlists are unlisted but available and will eventually fill in with the video version of the report so you may wish to bookmark these playlists.

    1. Whisper Report: How can AI be effectively integrated into healthcare systems?
    2. Whisper Report: What are the best practices for enhancing cybersecurity in healthcare?
    3. Whisper Report:  How can telemedicine be optimized to improve patient care?

    Sessions and Deep Dives

    Due to the restrictive privacy nature of the conference, we could not record any keynotes and sessions were limited but we were still able to capture great research. First, enjoy the press Q&A session held by HIMSS very own President and CEO Hal Wolf. This session covered the gambit including HIMSS instrumental role in ensuring citizens around the world achieve health equity. Their mission is independent of any specific government. He has high hopes that private organizations will step in to compensate for any globally shifting landscapes. TBW Advisors was excited to say that we were able to secure HIMSS President and CEO Hal Wolf’s answer for the Whisper Report based on Question 1 and Question 2 above. These answers are presented separately from the primary session video. Hal Wolf’s answers to Question 1 and Question 2 are in their respective playlists.

    The Alexander Group provided their framework in the session titled, “From Strategy to Success: Rel World Go To Market Studies”.  This session provided their framework for revenue growth in healthcare through digitizing. The framework nicely summarizes the primary objectives of current investment areas that are occurring within healthcare to grow revenue. The session included a specific case study to drive the point home. The session, “Revolutionizing Healthcare: The AI Powered Stethoscope? During this session, Minttihealth CEO Xiaong Zou left attendees with one important question. “Why is there a thermometer in every home but not a stethoscope!?” For those seeking to secure and extended resilience across endpoints used to manage care and smart technologies, Absolute Security provided a session on a model to secure the health enterprise. Specifically, they leveraged a healthcare model to minimize risk into IT Security.

    Front Office AI Applications

    In healthcare, standard business operations are separate from technologies leveraged to provide healthcare. While both may deal with health data, health operations are significantly riskier and more restrictive. There were innovations serving both aspects of the healthcare system at HIMSS. On the front office side, we found one of those technologies you hope the next doctor you see with has deployed. Relatient’s focus is on enabling patient self-scheduling, even for new patients without using the Patient Portal. No more hold time and spending hours trying to get into the doctors’ office. Relatient purports Practices leveraging the technology have realized 70% of self-scheduling are brand new patients with 30% making their appointments after hours. Xcaliber shared their agentic AI solution for healthcare which can anchor to any of your organization’s data stores. Problems they solve include prior authorization and discharge summaries. Aisera is another agentic AI solution for Healthcare with three separate fully developed ontologies for healthcare ready to go. Aisera purports it is designed to leverage agentic AI to build out new workflows opening the doors to endless possibilities.

    Healthcare Support Applications

    When you move from the front office of healthcare to the back office, many things change. Even the keyboards and mice must be different so they can be sanitized. Fortunately, Man & Machine has waterproof and washable keyboards and mice available. The mice can even be dipped in 10% bleach! Warning, do not try that at home with your equipment!

    Keyboards are not the only devices to support providing health,  doctors leverage many handheld devices. Stethoscopes, blood pressure meters, glucose meters and the likes. Telemedicine and AI are also impacting these medical devices. In turn, these medical devices are also becoming more intelligent and capable of provide remote and real-time data such as those now available by Minttihealth. For those in cybersecurity, at this point your head might start to spin at the possibilities of it all. Have no fear, there were many providers on hand to help including Absolute Security. Absolute Security solutions aim to ensure those end points such as tablet and PC’s in use are secure and resilient.

    Some of those endpoints are more expensive than others. Some may be huge expensive machines. Keeping track of all those assets and ensuring the safety of staff require an intelligent location solution. Cognosos provides an infrastructure light, location intelligence solution for your assets – man or machine.

    Moving on to the care side and practitioner support, Evidently provides clinical summarization and decision support created leveraging actual clinicians. Notice it is a decision support tool as the clinician is ultimately responsible for taking care of the patient. We often refer to this as Human in the Loop or HIL. One interesting capability of Evidently is to provide a very clear line where facts originated. This makes it easy for the clinician to decide to agree or disagree with the technology’s suggestion, ultimately building trust.

    Next Year’s Conference  

    HIMSS 2026 conference will once again be held in Las Vegas, Nevada. The announced dates are March 9-13, 2026.

    ©2019-2025 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.

  • Whisper Report: How can we manage tariff costs in our supply chain?

    Whisper Report: How can we manage tariff costs in our supply chain?

    Published to clients: February 27, 2025                 ID: 2057

    Published to Readers: February 28, 2025

    Published to Email Whispers: March 1, 2025

    Video Edition: March 2, 2025

    Analyst(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photojournalist(s): Dr. Doreen Galli

    Abstract:

    To manage tariff costs in the supply chain, a two-pronged approach is recommended: cleaning up data for better decision-making and optimizing cost parameters. Digital transformation is crucial for navigating tariff challenges. Additionally, avoiding hidden costs, moving on-shore, reducing cycle costs, and leveraging free trade zones can help. Utilizing tools to understand total landed costs and diversifying suppliers and logistics providers are also key strategies.

    What is the dominant advice?

    We took the most frequently asked and most urgent questions straight to the logistics and supply chain experts in the industry. This Whisper Report addresses the question regarding how to manage tariff costs in one’s supply chain. For any professional* even tangentially involved in anything to do with fulfillment, supply chain, and logistics, it is easy to become panicked at the talk of tariffs. Beyond supply chain and logistics professionals, operations and financial executives are impacted by what is going on as are the technologists and data experts that are required to thrive in such environments. As 4flow’s Adam Poch shared, “You have to have a nimble and agile supply chain to navigate that”. Or as FreightFacts’ Lance Healy put it, “our job is to react, anticipate if we can, but apply technology. “ This suggests a two-pronged approach. Clean up your data so you can optimize costs.

    Cleaning up your Data

    Vizion’s Ben Tracy suggests and offers, “transparent and easy to access data to empower intelligent supply chain decisions. “  Yes, digital transformation is required to successfully navigate this challenge. If you have not done so there is no more time to wait. Many solutions expect the data has been collected for a technology team to clean and provide intelligence over. But logistics data is not transactional data nor does it have a history of being clean and collected like financial data. In fact, logistics and supply chain has some of the messiest data with many suggesting over 30% dirty and useless.  Research regarding a large variety of vendors involved in cleaning and digitizing logistics and supply chain can be found in Conference Whispers: Manifest 2025 and Conference Whispers: Smart Retail Tech Expo 2024. This is a significant area of expertise offered to our clients through inquiry privileges.

    Optimize and Managing Costs Parameters

    For those somewhere on the digital transformation maturity scale, the problem regarding managing tariffs costs now boils down to continuing to find ways to transform and manage supply costs. As summary of the 6 actions to manage tariff costs can be found in Figure 1.

    Avoid Hidden Costs

    Sensos’s CEO shared a story about how they onboarded a customer who was blindsided with hidden costs when products went through Africa without their knowledge. Per TrafficTech’s Hilary Ambro, “work with a customs broker with is vested in and understands your trade lanes as you are moving products so you can minimize those costs.”

    Move on-shore

    An obvious way to reduce costs associated with tariffs is to move on-shore. Hoptek’s Sean Maharai suggests, “working towards on shore, raw materials and ability to manufacture (and assemble) on shore”. Or as Mark Richards at AWI Logistics put it, “People are redesigning their supply chains. Instead of distribution in Canada or Mexico servicing the US, they are bringing the distribution back to the US.”

    Reduce part of cycle costs

    Any and every place one can reduce costs is valuable in such uncertain times. An exciting solution that can impact your cost per pallet offering next day delivery at ground shipping costs is Aeros. Aeros is a EVTOL (electric, vertical take of and landing) vehicle that appear like a blimp and hovers over urban areas with the goods to deliver, drones and related charging stations with line of sight to deliver and drone operators to operate. Rye Akervik shared that their company, Shipsi is an aggregator of last mile and middle mile networks. Shipsi’s solution is to, “rate shop those networks, find the best partner, the best SLA and manage that customer experience. “ Verity’s Taylor Wilson recommends, “utilizing free trade zones to delay the Tariffs and related payments to improve your cashflow.” Finally, if you are traveling between Canada and USA, there is a new solution coming online Fall of 2025. As Manny Paiva of the Gordie Howe International Bridge shared, “You have a Highway to Highway route connection that will allow transport trucks to get their goods across the border within ~11 seconds!”

    Reduce total landed costs                                                                                                                  

    If an organization has reached digitization maturity, they can leverage top tools to understand their total landed costs. As Yikun Shao of Alibaba.com shared, they offer solutions with “tools to provide transparency to all of costs related to cross border movement of goods so they can make more informed decisions.”  But Alibaba.com doesn’t stop there. They also provide tools to directly enable “you diversity of suppliers as well as logistic providers so you have options available. “At the end of the day, managing costs associated with Tariffs is a subset of managing the total landed costs of any goods.

    *When vendors’ names or quotes are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference or what we heard doing our research, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document.  

    Related playlists

    1. Whisper Report: How can we manage tariff costs in our supply chain?
    2. Conference Whispers: Manifest 2024

    ©2019-2025 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.

  • Conference Whispers: Manifest 2025

    Conference Whispers: Manifest 2025

    Published to clients: February 19, 2025                                               ID: 2056        

    Published to readers: February 20, 2025              

    Published to Email Whispers: May 28, 2025

    Publicly Published with video edition: May 29, 2025

    Analyst: Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photojournalist: Dr. Doreen Galli

    ABSTRACT

    Manifest 2025 allowed over 6,000 attendees to see more than 1,500+ shippers +1200+ startups and investors + 300 Speakers with over 50 countries represented. Key highlights included a case study on supplier globalization, a new AI tool for supply chain communication, and comprehensive logistics solutions. A new international bridge, opening in Fall 2025, promises to streamline trade between the USA and Canada. Innovations in urban deliveries, last-mile solutions, and digital verification were also presented. Advances in data and inventory management were demonstrated, along with AI-driven solutions aimed at optimizing logistics. The event emphasized the industry’s move towards digitization and automation.

    The Conference

    • Manifest 2025 allowed over 6,000 attendees to see more than 1,500+ shippers, 1200+ startups and investors, and 300 Speakers with over 50 countries represented.

    Cautions

    If you were speaking on stage, the terms and conditions of the conference meant that no one, even members of the press, were able to capture even a minute of any session. It is hoped next year the conference will adopt more standard T&C. In the meantime, we did capture some session summaries from speakers.

    Conference Vibe

    After more than 60 videos, endless shorts forthcoming, and research for 4 different research documents including this one, our coverage of Manifest 2025 closes. Manifest 2025 allowed over 6,000 attendees to see more than 1,500+ shippers, 1200+ startups and investors, and 300 Speakers with over 50 countries represented.  The Expo Hall* was full of suppliers across the supply chain and logistics. The event featured a full breakfast as well as a Waffle Station. One could also purchase their breakfast or coffee at the Venetian Bistro. If you were still hungry, it wasn’t long before the extensive lunch was also available. Admittedly, the dedicated pasta station was also a huge hit with the attendees. However, of all the conference food available at the Venetian, it is their desserts that are always the biggest of hit – yes they taste as good as they look! If logistics and supply chain are in your interest area, enjoy and save the entire Manifest playlist so you will be notified when related shorts are posted as well. If you are not a client, it is even more critical you like your favorite videos, so we understand what technology you are most interested in seeing us capture.

    The event opened on Monday with a lot of energy and select sessions. The registration lines moved quickly. Unfortunately, we were not able to record any sessions due to the terms and conditions of the conference. Many sponsors seemed quite upset and are hoping this is fixed for future years. We were able to conduct research for three forthcoming Whisper Reports for our clients. The playlists are unlisted but available and will eventually fill in with the video version of the report so you may wish to bookmark these playlists.

    1. Whisper Report: How can we manage tariff costs in our supply chain?
    2. Whisper Report: What are the biggest challenges of using generative AI in logistics?
    3. Whisper Report: Can generative AI prevent supply chain disruptions?

    Moving Products

    One persistent truth at any conference on supply chain and logistics, there is a knowledge set shared strictly about getting things from point A to point B. While the T&C of the conference meant no one could capture the sessions, we were able to get an exclusive overview of the Super Shipper Case Study by Alibaba straight from the executive at Alibaba.com. Titled, “Shipper Case Study, Globalization of Suppliers” announced several solutions for finding sources. The selections are customizable, extensive, b2b, and are meant to enable optimized scale for even the most sophisticated, and dynamic shipping environments of 2025. A new AI support communication tool, AXCIO, was announced that enables a conversational interface for your supply chain and logistics needs. Alibaba.com marketplace has also received significant update for its fulfilment capabilities particularly for cross border fulfilment. Capabilities include direct access to the logistics marketplace with the ability to get real-time live quotes.

    With explicit and extensive hubs in Reno, Dallas, and Atlanta, ITS shared their end-to-end logistics capabilities and solutions. If you happen to be a freight carriers and your questions is how best to move freight from A to B  – Optimal Dynamics has software designed to help you answer that question if you should use your assets or those of others. Nothing saves time going from point A to point B like a direct route! The Gordie Howe International Bridge announced it is opening Fall of 225. Connecting I-75 in the USA directly to Highway 401 in Canada minus 7 traffic lights!  This new direct route will save time and money through the busiest commercial land border crossing between the USA and Canada.

    Urban deliveries can be difficult and are frequently burdened with the congestion of the population. An exciting solution by Aeroscraft was on exhibit. Aeroscraft is an EVTOL – electric, vertical take-off and landing – like INVO EVTOL we saw at CES. In contrast to INVO, the Aeroscraft is a not a flying saucer for personal transport but rather a Blimp with the smallest model capable of a 9-ton payload – yes 9 tons.

    Furthermore, it launches with a fleet of drones, their chargers, their operators, and massive payload. Once above the urban area, the drone operators get busy with line-of-sight capability delivery packages to the urban area below without adding to traffic! For additional research on drones, see Conference Whispers: Commercial UAV Expo.

    Another challenging space involves delivering small products and the last mile. Hailify is a tech company that focuses on last mile of packages smaller than 2 shoe boxes and under 20 pounds. They focused heavily on the integration for small regional delivery. Likewise, TUSK provides an integrated network of the 9 top tier carriers into a single API, unified pick-up, contracts, everything creating a simple process to leverage multiple logistic solutions. Once you accomplish that last mile, the challenge for many solutions involves the last 10 feet. In theory, the network can be fully automated but how do you get the package from the vehicle to the person expecting the delivery? River.ai demonstrated their fully autonomous solution that can climb any stairs in any weather to take a package from a truck and hand it to a human expecting the delivery or accept a package from the human. That leaves one critical step left – verifying that the recipient and the related supply chain documents are accurate. Fortunately, the expo hall featured Trustd,  a digital verification and identity platform designed for supply chain and logistics.. This solution enables not only verification of humans but document identity as well. Trustd provided an exclusive overview of their talk to TBW Advisors. In their session, “Platform Security in the age of Fraud”, Trustd explained why it is not only critical to verify the carrier, but all of the ‘paperwork’ must be authenticated. Was there supposed to be 3 crates or 6? How many crates did they pick up? Getting that information wrong can be expensive and crime rings have targeted this space. Additional research on Identity and Access Management is available in Conference Whispers: Identiverse 2024.

    Clean Data and Digitization

    During our coverage of Conference Whispers: ConExpo in 2023, we observed the fundamental advantages of construction over manufacturing for digital transformation. Thus, we were very interested to understand the progress being made in supply chain and logistics towards cleaning up the data and digitization. As a first step, one can add intelligence to your existing forklifts with Slamcore. Their solution doesn’t require new forklifts but adds a camera, related sensors, and intelligent platform to suddenly provide forklift visibility to your facility. Barcode scanning and related manual data entry is frequently another troubled data spot – unless you have the right technology. The complex array of barcode layouts can make it extremely difficult to efficiently capture the alphanumeric text. This information represents the inventory and must be digitized accurately. Cloud 9 provided TBW Advisors LLC with an exclusive demonstration how their solution can efficiently handle this complex array of barcodes in the logistics space. Data regarding the size and weight accuracy of inventory is one of the critical pieces of data required in the logistics space. Cubiscan was one of the solutions exhibited that shared their approach involving sensors, cameras, and some intelligent algorithms to provide you what you need.

    Not sure if the address is accurate and want to ensure the recipient didn’t move? Woolpert Digital Innovations is a Google location partner and can help you integrate with anything and everything Google offers in this space. Want to go more granular? Sensos shared their exciting innovations that help one track not only package’s location, but the condition of the package in transport with the convenience of a tiny label that has embedded cellular! As a former AT&T strategist, this capability used to come in something analogous to in size and agility matched only by the original brick cellular phones!

    Inventory is a critical data space in supply chain and logistics. Fortunately 2025 includes autonomous inventory solutions such as the exciting solution from Dane Technologies. Such solutions leverage cameras for each shelf and autonomous technology to navigate the warehouse. Understanding the limits and how they match to your inventory is critical to select the right solution for your warehouse. We were also able to catch the demonstration of Dexory robot in action on the exhibit floor. Of course if you do not want to do inventory but rather pick the inventory for a customer order, then Brightpick is someone to evaluate. Leveraging drones for inventory management vs a moving robot, the Swiss Tech solution by Verity is something to also consider if you are seeking to get efficient clean inventory data.

    If one prefers to just bring someone in to assist in cleaning up the data space, plenty of integrators were also on hand. WMS specializes in business process management for the supply chain space. WMS capabilities include digitizing everything to prepare and leverage the new generation of logistic intelligent solutions. 4flow is another example of someone that was available to enable digital transformation in this sector.

    AI, Robotics, and Automation

    If an organization is fortunate enough to have their end-to-end data clean enough for AI, there are solutions ready to help you become optimal! Want predictive capabilities for freight costs and visibility to your buying power? Greenscreens.ai is a truly predictive solution with an impressive accuracy rate. Vizion provides container intelligence, tracking, and monitoring through its comprehensive consolidated APIs for most freight carriers. The goals are accuracy in arrival time. For those with clean data and seeking to move all the way to agentic AI in logistics, Arnata shared their solution. If you have a factory full of robots and you simply want to know where they all are on a single pane of glass? InOrbit.ai is all about simplifying robot orchestration and giving you that exact unified view. We have exclusive interview with Dexory to understand how their inventory visibility robot works. TBW Advisors LLC was also able to capture an exclusive description regarding the capabilities of Rivr.ai that isn’t stumped by the stairs leading up to your front door! Admittedly, of all the autonomous solutions, the most jaw dropping was the loading of a semi-truck trailer in 5 minutes flat. From the financial reduction of risk to the lessoning of burden on hard-to-find workers, a case study on Slip Robotics in a distribution center would be quite an interesting read.

    Next Year’s Conference  

    The Manifest 2026 conference will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada. The announced dates are February 9-11, 2026.

    ©2019-2025 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking, The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.

  • Conference Whispers: APPEX & SEMA  2024

    Conference Whispers: APPEX & SEMA  2024

    Analyst: Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photojournalist: Dr. Doreen Galli

    Published: November 12, 2024                    ID: 2054

    Readers: November 13, 2024

    Email Whispers: April 5, 2025

    ABSTRACT

    After 25 flights of stairs, over 35,000 steps and almost 280 minutes of recording, our coverage of AAPEX and SEMA closes. AAAPEX and SEMA are two different shows that take place at the same time. Together the two shows hosted 160,000 attendees, 2,400 brands, 1400 vehicles across 1.2 million net feet of exhibits. AAPEX specializes in automotive aftermarket replacement parts. In contrast, SEMA focuses on specialty equipment manufacturing that enhance safety, performance, styling, comfort, and convenience of cars, trucks and SUVs. The technology at AAPEX & SEMA spanned pressure, temperature, and oxygen sensors to technology to run the shop to marketing solutions.

    Highlights

    • The technology at AAPEX and SEMA focused on the variety of sensors available to build products to the technology to run the shop or to market the business.

    Cautions

    • Important to realize that technology at a non-technology conference is just a sample of the technology available. Common technologies such as those for marketing can just as easily be leveraged for other SMBs. Likewise, there may be similar solutions that did not come to the specialty industry conference.

    Conference Vibe

    After 25 flights of stairs, over 35,000 steps and almost 280 minutes of recording resulting in 28 videos and a few hundred shorts forthcoming, our coverage of AAPEX and SEMA closes. AAAPEX and SEMA are two different shows that take place at the same time. Together the two shows hosted 160,000 attendees, 2,400 brands, 1400 vehicles across 1.2 million net feet of exhibits. AAPEX, Automotive Aftermarket Products Expo, specializes in automotive aftermarket replacement parts. AAPEX was held at the Venetian. They hosted the new products showcase in the halls outside the exhibitions. The lower-level expo hall hosted Joe’s Garage, wheels, parts for EVs, and the podcasters media row*. APPEX upper-level expo had a variety of lubricants, oil, headlights, taillights, lights simply for tailgating and all things that make vehicles smell good. Food could be found at the Venetian Bistro or the Grab-n-go also at the Venetian. An outdoor beer garden could be found on the way to Caesars Forum connected by a handy walkway. Caesars also hosted exhibits for AAPEX specifically featuring products from China and Taiwan. Caesars’ Forum is connected to a Monorail station that can take one to the Las Vegas convention center for SEMA. Note: Caesars’ Forum is not located at Caesars’ Palace Casino.

    SEMA, Specialty Equipment Market Association, focuses on specialty equipment that enhances safety, performance, styling, comfort, and convenience of cars, trucks, and SUVs. SEMA took place at the Las Vegas Convention Center with its own eateries. SEMA West Hall was full of attachments for pick-up trucks to hold or tow any recreational or sporting equipment one could imagine, film to keep the sun out or wrap to change the vehicle color. A walkway from West Hall connects to LVCC Central Hall or one could ride the Vegas Loop. SEMA Central Hall hosted exhaust, gears, batteries, fuel injection solutions, any engine part one could imagine, transmissions and garage flooring. SEMA South Upper featured power solutions and lifts and collision repair. SEMA South Lower exhibits displayed various propulsion technologies, wheels, rims, and tailgating lights. Seeking to see custom cars? Head to the outdoor exhibits in the parking lots.         

    *When vendors’ names are shared as examples in this document, it is to provide a concrete example of what was on display at the conference, not an evaluation or recommendation. Evaluation and recommendation of these vendors are beyond the scope of this specific research document. Other examples products in the same category may have also been on display.

    Technology and Data Finds

    At TBW Advisors LLC we care most about Technologies and data solutions. The first stop is all about sustainability, a popular topic in any senior staff meeting. If your organization has a fleet of electric vehicles, a portable electric vehicle charger by Ampure may be something to evaluate. No longer needing to find a charging station, this portable charger can leverage any standard outlet and get your EV running! Likewise, when you get your fleet serviced, it may be easier to track your organization’s numbers if the service center leverages Sustainable estimatics by Solera that enables shops to provide carbon footprint estimate for all repairs.

    The second technology stop is all about sensors! MTE is one example of a vendor on hand that shared their oxygen, pressure, and temperature sensors. While smart manufacturing consultants were present, they all turned out to be camera shy. except for Bosch. Bosch had exhibits in multiple Expo Halls across the event. We were able to catch their talk on leveraging vision positioning to improve calibrations. The geospatial data content admittedly gave us flashback to our coverage of Commercial UAV Expo. Another talk discussing leveraging 3d data scanning to significantly save time on custom parts was given on the central stage.

    The third pillar of technology found at AAPEX and SEMA involves software running the shop. We had already mentioned Solera with their sustainable estimatics, ALLDATA is a one stop shop for OEM repair instructions for 95% of all vehicles on the road today. Shopmonkey is a cloud-based solution to run all your automotive bays from scheduling, estimating, inspecting to handling payments. If you are seeking an intelligent automated solution to run your automotive shop, then R.O. WRITER will even ensure you have maintained profits and all your service writers function as your best.

    The final technology stop was all about digital marketing, a topic heavily covered during our analysis of Adobe Summit. Optimize is a general digital marketing solution for any small or medium sized business. Their specialty is handling your google search page, your Facebook and your yelp, ensuring you show up on searches. Autoshop Solutions is a firm specializing in marketing for the aftermarket companies from the website, to search engine optimization to help you find your next customers. On the other end of the spectrum, Epicor Automotive Sector featured an advanced data aggregation solution including ERP and CRM.

    Next Year’s Conference

    Next year’s AAPEX and SEMA will be held in Las Vegas at the Venetian, Caesars Forum, and the Las Vegas Convention Center on November 4-8, 2025.

    ©2019-2025 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Technical Business Whispers, Fact-based research and Advisory, Conference Whispers, Industry Whispers, Email Whispers, The Answer is always in the Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking , The Answer is always in the Whispers, and One Change a Month, are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.

  • Conference Whispers: CONEXPO-CON/AGG & IFPE 2023

    Conference Whispers: CONEXPO-CON/AGG & IFPE 2023

    Analyst: Dr. Doreen Galli

    Photojournalist: Dr. Doreen Galli

    ABSTRACT

    North America’s largest construction trade show, CONEXPO-CON/AGG and IFPE are held together every three years in Las Vegas. The conference featured over 3 million net square feet of exhibits, over 2400 exhibitors, 200 educational courses, and 139,000 attendees from 133 countries. There were endless examples of Industrial Intelligence of Things (IIoT) and early examples of digitally transformed construction sites. The digital transformation of the construction site is well underway enabling multivendor views to optimize asset use and the total carbon footprint of a given job.  

    The Conference

    • The first CONEXPO was held in 1909 in Columbus, Ohio. The first CON/AGG was held in Detroit Michigan in 1928. CONEXPO and CON/AGG merged for the 19961 show held in Las Vegas. The Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) is responsible for putting on the show. Today, CONEPXO is one conferences with three domains: specifically, CONEXPO, CON/AGG and IFPE. Due the size and complexity of bringing all the equipment together, it is held every 3 years at the LVCC – the only location that can physically accommodate the weight of the equipment.
    • CONEXPO-CONN/AGG and IFPE was held in Las Vegas and leveraging the entire expanded LVCC including West, Central, South and North Halls and the festival lot. The Conference featured with 139,000 registered attendees including international attendees from 133 countries. The exhibitions featured over 2400 exhibitors in over 3 million net square feet of exhibits. There was a significant presence of women at the conference not simply joining attendees.
    • Attendees at CONEXPO-CONN/AGG and IFPE 2020 held titles such as Job Site Director, Director Heavy Equipment Rentals, Machine Operator, Logistics Manager, Electrical Engineer, Mechanical Engineer, Director of Product Management, Director City Planning, and new this time – data scientist.

    Highlights

    • Sensors is standard on heavy equipment this time around. Today’s sensor solutions are more intelligent than ever. Predictive maintenance is a reality when information from telematics systems is integrated into maintenance systems.
    • Digital transformation is arriving at construction job sites and heavy equipment rentals.
    • While there are new Government regulations such as US bidding requirements to disclose carbon footprint and plan to reduce emissions, OEM (original equipment manufacturers) equipment itself does not provide this information. Additional work is required to understand one’s footprint.

    Cautions

    • The industry would benefit from leveraging six sigma or other practices common in manufacturing to formally document the business benefit of their digital transformation.
    • There are many lessons learned in IT data management and manufacturing transformations that can benefit the construction digital transformation. Hopefully, these lessons will be shared so maximum success can be achieved.

    Conference Vibe

    The largest North American construction conference surpassed the attendance of their last conference which was held while Covid 19 was declared a pandemic2. The conference requires an entire month to set up – complex enough that it is only held every 3 years. The exhibits leveraged the entire Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC). It spanned the parking lots, South Hall, North Hall, Central Hall, the new West Hall, and the Las Vegas Festival Grounds. When asked attendees reported meeting their business objectives, the answer was a resounding Yes. Some indicated the expected deals came through along with a few pleasant surprises. Once again – the quality of attendees itself was mentioned by the exhibitors. Fortunately, the press room and many exhibits had coffee available – both regular and decaffeinated AND hot water for tea this time around.

    Digital Transformation of Commercial Fleets and Job Sites

    According to IFM3, 85% of vehicle telematics is used for vehicle tracking with only 27% used to track fatigue management. While the 2020 conference had education modules on digital transformation, in 2023 there were competing modules. CONEXPO 2023 live forced one to choose between ‘Top 10 Uses Cases using advanced Machine Data4’ and ‘Predictive Maintenance: Plan the Work and Work the Plan’. In 2020 participants were told the value of sharing one important piece of data5. In 2023, the conference offered a plethora of machine data transformational use cases.

    Attendees saw a Plante Moran’s customer discuss how they learned to leverage data to better manage their fleets6. ICC provided a great session on crane operation safety using data analysis of standards and incidents. When all was finished, the audience understood that less than 23.8% of crane safety responsibility falls on the operator’s shoulders7.

    POLARIS Laboratories® demonstrated the advantages of simply connecting one’s fluid analysis to the maintenance management system8. In another session, participants learned how to use their machine data for 10 separate use cases. The use cases varied from maximizing the ROI of their machines, saving money by maximizing use of remote investigation to minimizing the costs of batteries9. Another topic growing in popularity due to federal contracting requirements was understanding the carbon footprint of a job site. A complete solution set with various accuracy levels to measure fleet emissions was presented by Clue10. DOKA presented a platform that can estimate your carbon footprint. In addition, DOKA platform can optimize most metrics for job sites across the company and across machine vendors11. Furthermore, DOKA offers an augmented reality solution to help customers and teams picture the job site before it is realized12.

    Finally, one cannot discuss all this technology and data without a great session on cybersecurity. To that end CONEXPO did not disappoint with a great panel revealing ransomware and DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks are top of mind13.

    In conclusion, it was exciting to see how far and how fast the construction and agricultural industries are progressing toward digital transformed job sites and enterprises. Unfortunately, transformations stories frequently could not communicate their business impact. If I had one piece of advice to share with the industry it would be leverage six sigma or some business process impact/improvement (BPI) assessment during the transformations. These types of processes capture the financial advantage of the actual transformation. Despite the lack of BPI assessment, construction benefits from the constant turnover of construction equipment within companies. Thus, I would not be surprised to see the construction industry successfully transform faster than manufacturing.

    Next Year’s Conference

    CONEXPO-CON/AGG is held every three years. The next CONEXPO-CON/AGG and IFPE will occur March 3-7, 2026, in Las Vegas, NV. One may find more information here: The Future of Construction on Display: CONEXPO-CON/AGG Exhibitors Take the Industry.

    Citations

    1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conexpo-Con/Agg
    2. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/coronavirus-cases-surpass-1000-us-tsa-agents-test/story?id=69525688
    3. https://youtu.be/IbvC4mMd-l8
    4. https://youtu.be/_jZawl8zD0I
    5. https://youtu.be/btAlIcG9rEw
    6. https://youtu.be/dzjPV2WrXY8
    7. https://youtu.be/t1BLnp0iNNg
    8. https://youtu.be/MG2R9badaW4
    9. https://youtu.be/_jZawl8zD0I
    10. https://youtu.be/Xgl0z1xQZGc
    11. https://youtu.be/oI4phMkytB0
    12. https://youtu.be/QbbkZl4u-04
    13. https://youtu.be/EFx-SqwNDMw

    ©2019-2023 TBW Advisors LLC. All rights reserved. TBW, Conference Whispers, Technical Business Whispers, Whisper Reports, Whisper Studies, Whisper Ranking and Fact-based Research and Advisory are trademarks or registered trademarks of TBW Advisors LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without TBW’s prior written permission. It consists of the opinions of TBW’s research organization which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, TBW disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy of such information. TBW does not provide legal or investment advice and its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by the TBW Usage Policy. TBW research is produced independently by its research organization without influence or input from a third party. For further information, see Fact-based research publications on our website for more details.

  • Whisper Report: Business Agility Requires Modern Data Management

    ABSTRACT

    Business agility is a must during these pandemic times. Business agility requires data-driven decisions. Data-driven decision making requires data agility and the modernization of data management to enable business-led analytics. The most common, successful, and scalable data management modernizations involve data virtualization, IPaaS, and data hub technologies to provide a data layer.