How to Transition Your Supply Chain From Manual Processes to AI-powered Solutions

November 15, 2023

The impact that supply chain leaders have on their respective businesses is predicated on the supply chain management systems and especially supply chain planning systems that they have in place. While many have already adopted some tools to support market demands — or at least have plans to — these tools are often cumbersome, disconnected or subsidized with spreadsheets. In fact, according to a 2020 survey conducted by Modern Materials Handling, a staggering 45% of supply chain professionals reported they are using mostly or entirely manual processes. The bad news is, those who continue to rely on manual planning will likely fall behind. But, the good news? Transitioning from spreadsheets to digital planning supported by AI-powered planning solutions is very much within reach.

In this blog, we’ll explore these areas:

The risks of spreadsheet-based planning
The benefits of AI-powered planning solutions
How you can transition to a digital supply chain

The risks of spreadsheet-based supply chain planning

To put it bluntly, using spreadsheets to manage your supply chain is a slow-moving, time-consuming, and error-prone process — especially when compared to digital methods. Take a look at the risks listed below, related to spreadsheet-based planning. You could be familiar with some of them, and others you may not even realize are impacting your business.

You can open your supply chain up to errors that require remediation efforts
You spend more time on the tactical aspects of planning than the strategic impact
You are not able to collaborate cross-functionally to generate consensus plans
You are not leveraging valuable data that is available to you
Your (slow) reaction time might be damaging customer experience
You don’t have reliable performance metrics to rack your progress

To learn more about the risks of spreadsheets, check out our blog, The Hidden Threats of Spreadsheet-Based Supply Chain Planning.

The benefits of AI-powered planning solutions

When you compare digital supply chain planning against more traditional methods, the benefits are clear. Below are just some of the reasons supply chain executives have made the strategic decision to shift to digital solutions. More details about these can be found in our recent AI benefits checklist.

Increase revenue
Improve the accuracy of your forecasting
Leverage important market signals
Optimize your inventory
Make better decisions more quickly
Enhance collaboration across your business
Create a better customer experience

All of these advantages add up to better outcomes and greater confidence, not just for your supply chain but for your business as a whole. You can dig deeper into these benefits in our recent blog, The Benefits of Shifting from Manual to Digital Supply Chain Planning.

How can you shift from spreadsheets to digital solutions?

Shifting from manual supply chain planning to the use of digital solutions gives you the power to improve and accelerate your decision-making, unlock profitable growth opportunities, reduce risk, and efficiently scale your business. So, how can you make the shift? We’ve outlined a few steps you can take to begin your transition.

1. Identify your business goals

Think about these as they relate not just to your supply chain, but to every part of your organization. How will meeting your short-term and long-term supply chain goals help to fulfill the goals of your business cross-functionally?

2. Identify your business challenges and opportunities

Perhaps you’re dealing with some or all of the risks of manual supply chain planning that we highlighted earlier, and you’d like to address those head on. Or maybe you anticipate a broader scope of opportunities that could be better served by the enablement of digital solutions. Think about what you can address now, and into the future.

3. Find a AI-powered planning solutions provider that fits your business needs and knows your industry

As you assess your goals, challenges, and opportunities, you’ll need a digital solution partner that can help you develop a strategic roadmap that will address the full vision of your organization and provide industry insights. Look for a partner that offers trusted expertise, flexibility to evolve with your business, and scalability of solutions and support that can empower your growth.

Questions to ask potential supply chain software providers

As you do your research into solution providers that could be the best fit for your business, outside of inquiring about initial and ongoing investment, you might consider asking these questions during your conversations with them.

How can your solutions address our business challenges and goals?
What is the anticipated timeline for onboarding with your solutions?
What roadblocks or challenges have you experienced in the past for other businesses during implementation? Should we expect the same?
What can be expected in terms of both initial and ongoing support?
Do you have case studies to share that are applicable to our business?
What ROI should we expect and how quickly can we feel the benefits?
How do we get our team to embrace and adopt the solution?

4. Facilitate alignment across your organization

Once you’ve selected your ideal digital solutions partner, it will then be critical to facilitate collaboration on the decision and next steps across every impacted function of your business. Get every department leader and executive onboard to ensure full alignment in preparation for the initial implementation and ongoing transitions of your digitalization roadmap.

Meet an AI-powered planning solution ready to accelerate your digital transition.

Among the industry leaders guiding supply chain professionals through their digital journey is Firstshift.ai. Firstshift offers both transformative AI-powered planning solutions and supply chain planning expertise. It’s a powerful combination of services that empower businesses to:

Ditch the manual, time-consuming, and risk-prone spreadsheets
Leverage external data to address relevant market signals (and ignore the noise)
Accelerate the transformation of data into actionable insights
Leverage predictive analytics to align future performance
Use prescriptive analytics to automate, wherever possible

To discover if Firstshift is the right partner for your shift to AI-powered planning solutions, schedule your free demo.

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News

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December 4, 2025

Firstshift Launches Demandshift: Demand Planning Reimagined

Newark, CA – December 4, 2025 — Supply chain teams are done waiting. After years of “quick time-to-value” promises that never delivered, Firstshift is challenging the status quo with Demandshift, a new AI-powered demand planning and forecasting solution with a fixed fee implementation that goes live in less than six weeks — guaranteed.

Demandshift is built for supply chain leaders who have been burned by lengthy, expensive implementations and disappointing ROI. Designed to replace outdated tools and cumbersome spreadsheets, it brings speed, accuracy, and confidence back to demand planning.

“Supply chain teams have heard the same pitch for years. Easy implementations. Rapid ROI. Then reality hits. Missed deadlines, ballooning budgets, and frustrated planners,” said Hari Menon, Firstshift CEO. “With Demandshift, we engineered a better way. Fast, fixed-fee deployments, full post-launch support, and measurable results within weeks, not years.”

Built as a cloud-native, AI-first SaaS solution, Demandshift combines the sophistication of enterprise forecasting with the usability and agility modern planners expect. The platform leverages over 20 forecasting algorithms to automatically select the best-fit model for each demand pattern, while providing intuitive, spreadsheet-like interfaces that drive fast adoption.

Customers implementing Firstshift have reported:

15–20% improvement in forecast accuracy
Improved inventory positions and working capital efficiency
Higher service levels and customer satisfaction
Measurable impact on revenue and margin

Every Demandshift engagement is delivered under a fixed fee, includes hypercare support for three months, and integrates easily with existing ERP systems which eliminate the risk and uncertainty that often derail digital initiatives.

“Speed and value are the new competitive edge,” added Menon. “We’re proving that AI-powered planning can be implemented rapidly, adopted easily, and scaled seamlessly without the pain the industry has come to expect.”

Ready to make the smart shift? Move fast. Win faster. Schedule a demo today to get started!

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News

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November 19, 2025

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About Firstshift

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

About Alloy.ai

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

Insights

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September 29, 2025

Why Tribal Knowledge and Spreadsheets Stall Supply Chain Growth

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

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

The Hidden Risks of Spreadsheet Dependency

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

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

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

How Tribal Knowledge Creates Bottlenecks

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

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

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

AI Unlocks Both Speed and Scale

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

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

The Bottom Line

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

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

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

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