Next week, Supply Chain Matters will be in Tampa Florida attending the IBM Smarter Commerce 2014 Global Summit event. We have been invited to this conference since IBM leveraged its technology presence in Buy, Sell, Service and other capability areas of product value chains.

In our Supply Chain Matters summary of the 2013 Summit event, we found evidence that many of the end-to-end pieces of supply chain and Omni-Channel Commerce vision were beginning to fall into place but that clearer roadmaps to customer solutions availability were needed.

IBM’s prior major acquisitions in supply chain and Omni-Commerce were Emptoris for the Buy segment, Sterling Commerce for the Sell and B2B network messaging segment, ILOG for enhancing Buy, Sell and Service needs, DemandTec for pricing optimization and a whole host of specialized vendors for predictive analytics. The 2013 summit introduced a major new element, the unleashing of IBM’s corporate research and development efforts in coming up with potentially breakthrough approaches for the online Sell and Service aspects along with the intention that IBM Watson technology would be unleased for multi-industry Smarter Commerce predictive analytics needs and capabilities.

Stay tuned to Supply Chain Matters for continued coverage of this event. 

If you happen to be attending this year’s Summit, seek us out as say hello.

Bob Ferrari

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