Supply chain planning software

Planning what to make and what to stock, months ahead of demand

Every Diwali, people buy far more TVs than in an ordinary month. A company that makes TVs has to prepare months ahead. It has to decide how many TVs to make, how many parts to buy, and how many TVs to keep in each city's warehouse. And the demand never arrives exactly as forecast.

That is the supply chain: the whole path goods take, from the parts and the factory to the warehouse, the truck and your door. This Industry Vertical, the last of Domain VII, E-commerce, travel and logistics, follows goods along that path. It begins with the plan:

how much to make
how much to buy
how much stock to hold, and where

The supply chain and the Market Segments of this Industry Vertical: the plan above it all (30.1), the warehouse (30.2), the truck (30.3), ocean freight and customs (30.6), the last mile and the courier networks to your door (30.5 and 30.7), and tracking where the shipment is (30.4).

The plan is forecast weeks and months ahead. Supply-chain planning software is among the largest markets in business software, and much of it is built in India.

Every company named here has posted software engineering jobs in India. Famous companies that don't actively hire software engineers in India are left out.

This Market Segment has two sub-segments. The first covers the planners: the systems that forecast and plan the flow of goods. The second covers planning for particular buyers: the supplies of hospitals, and the records of every part a large company holds.

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The planners
The hospital's supplies and the materials record

The planners

Supply-chain planning, demand forecasting and deciding how much stock to hold, ERP for manufacturers, and software that decides

Back to the TV maker and the Diwali season from the start of this Market Segment. These companies sell the software that makes its plan.

Blue Yonder

with engineers in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune, has the most job postings in this Market Segment, and in this whole Industry Vertical. It sells the planning, warehouse and transport systems of many of the world's large retailers and manufacturers. Its Indian centres, among the largest it has, build much of them. It is owned by Panasonic. (More on how retailers forecast and set prices in Market Segment 27.2, Retail pricing and merchandising analytics, in Industry Vertical 27, Retail tech.)

QAD

with engineers in Pune, sells ERP and supply-chain planning to mid-sized manufacturers. ERP, short for enterprise resource planning, is the software in which a company keeps its orders, stock and accounts. QAD also appears in Market Segment 10.1, ERP and business accounting software (in Industry Vertical 10, ERP and business automation).

o9 Solutions

with engineers in Bengaluru, was founded by Indian entrepreneurs. It sells a planning platform that it calls a "digital brain".

Kinaxis

sells Maestro, a system for concurrent planning. In concurrent planning, all the plans are worked on together, so a change in one shows up in the others at once.

Aera Technology

with engineers in Pune, sells decision agents: AI agents that act on planning decisions. An AI agent is software that uses a language model, the kind of AI behind chatbots, to take actions on its own.

Crest AI

with engineers in Bengaluru, sells demand forecasting and replenishment, which means restocking before an item runs out.

The hospital's supplies and the materials record

Buying and stocking hospital supplies, from the order to the payment, and the records of every part a company holds

The same planning problem looks different in a hospital. Gloves, syringes and stents must never run out.

GHX

with engineers in Hyderabad, runs the exchange through which American hospitals order supplies from manufacturers. The exchange is a shared network that carries the catalogues, the contracts, the invoices and the stock records. GHX also appears in Market Segment 23.1, Revenue cycle management (RCM) software (in Industry Vertical 23, Health insurance and billing).

GHX India

is GHX's Indian centre. It also appears in Market Segment 24.1, Hospital operations software (in Industry Vertical 24, Hospitals, diagnostics and medical devices).

The exchange between hospitals and their suppliers: GHX runs the shared network that carries the catalogues, contracts, invoices and stock records between American hospitals and the manufacturers of medical supplies.

One company here works for any large company, not only hospitals:

Verdantis

with engineers in Mumbai, cleans the materials master data. That is the record of every part and spare that a large company holds. Verdantis also appears in Market Segment 8.1, Data integration and governance platforms (in Industry Vertical 8, Analytics and data providers).

The plan that replans itself.

Supply-chain plans used to be made once a month, and broken every day. AI models now replan all the time, as demand, supply and shipping change. The agents of Aera Technology and o9 Solutions act on the plan, rather than just presenting it. Planning is becoming a system that decides, with human planners approving the exceptions.

The plan that replans itself: instead of a monthly plan broken every day, models replan all the time as demand, supply and shipping change, agents act on the plan, and human planners approve the exceptions.

That is supply-chain planning: deciding what to make, buy and stock, months before the Diwali rush. Next, the goods go into the warehouse. (More on it in Market Segment 30.2, Warehouse management systems (WMS) and warehouse robotics.)

Who they hire

Who these companies hire, and for what, is on What supply chain and logistics companies hire for.

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