How AI Will Change Order Management Forever With Infios SVP Omar Akilah | 5IM

Foreigning us now for five insightful minutes is Omar Akilah, the SVP of product at Infios and a former colleague of both Ann and myself at Target.

And Omar is here to discuss how AI is already and also will impact order management systems in the future.

Omar, let's start with this.

You've spoken about you and I've spoken about this a lot.

You've spoken about order management being modular.

What does a modular order management system mean for retailers and why do you think?

It's an approach that many retailers would benefit from.

At the end of the day, companies are looking to unlock strategies and capabilities, not installing a bunch of S systems, right?

You think of oms, you think of tms, you think of wms, those were built more of a lumping of capabilities and functions in a dated view of the world.

The world today is much more dynamic.

And so I'm looking for functions that will unlock a strategy as opposed to installing a system and going through the time that it takes to do all of that.

So growing with our customers is absolutely essential to the mission at Infios.

And we do that by unlocking capabilities through modules, right?

Not full systems.

Meaning we're now coming in order management system.

We talked about inventory, we talked about optimization.

What if you're say, what if you are a TikTok shop today and you do expand into additional channels?

What you really need is inventory visibility and maybe order optimization.

You're okay on orchestration.

You can get orders to the right fulfillment channels.

That's what we talk about when we talk about modular, right?

Being able to understand where the customer is, right.

Basically, you know, to, to meet the customer where they are and then grow them into the future they need.

And then we have the full capability suite, right, to help them get, you know, add each module on as they grow.

We see that as the essential.

And you're seeing that a lot, Chris, you talk about Shopify and the environment there, you see, you know, think about small.

Once you grow out of Shopify and you grow into the next segment, you know, where do you go?

What do you do?

Are you going to continue to install a bunch of point solutions and then you have to manage all of them, or are you looking for modular solutions that grow into quote, unquote suites, right, that, that cover the breadth of the feature and functionality that you need.

So we see whether it's order management, transport management, warehouse management, it's really about the functions and the capabilities, not about the systems that you're trying to unlock at whatever phase or Stage you are in the business.

Omar, how is then predictive AI and machine learning kind of transforming the way that retailers are starting to think about Omni channel order orchestration and fulfillment.

So being able to understand what the data is telling you to optimize the right outcome for both you and your customer becomes absolutely essential in the future.

And we see that AI is the backbone and the foundation of order management.

From AI agents that help customers complete their orders to optimization and predictive AI to help ensure that you're actually protecting the right amount of inventory and optimizing the right decisions relative to which fulfillment channel should fulfill this order for you to end to end anomaly detection, understanding that a problem is happening within the supply chain and being able to adapt and react in real time to solve this.

At the end of the day we see that AI will play a role in the supply chain end to end and it needs to be.

But the one thing we fundamentally believe is it has to be purposeful and guided by real use cases, not the buzz and the terms that you're hearing today.

For those listening like Omar is our go to when we have questions about oms, like he's the first person that I call whenever I have a question about this.

And so I want to ask you, I want to put you on the spot here.

So what are some concrete examples that you can share of, you know, when AI is used in real time and how it's actually impacting business decisions?

Think of inventory.

Single pool of inventory.

How do I segment that, optimize it, protect it so that I ensure that I'm getting the route right.

Outcomes for my customers and my business.

Example, if I have a retail store, I know the inventory is not very accurate.

I need to protect the inventory.

If somebody wants to place a pickup order, I need to protect enough of it to ensure that I'm not giving them a bad experience by them walking in the store and the inventory is not there, or while balancing the fact that I need to expose enough to not lose that sale, right?

But then when I actually take the order and I now need to potentially ship the order to that same customer because they've decided instead of pickup they're going to actually ship it, now I'm looking at that same inventory because I may want to ship out of the store because the store has both items, one of them may not be as, as accurate as the other.

But I'm willing to take that chance because consolidating an order for me is going to be more cost effective than splitting an order so that's where the intelligence of AI comes into play to understand, given each use case, how should I behave?

And trying to do that as a user, you and me, trying to do that Excel spreadsheet or rules within an order management system, Imagine how many what if rules you'd have to set up.

No, thanks.

Yeah, not something we're interested in.

Well, Omar, let's get you out of here on this very important question.

As you look ahead into the future, how do you think that AI and machine learning are going to reshape order management over like, let's just say the next three years?

And what role do you think modular intelligence driven systems like this are going to play in the future?

Absolutely.

I think at the end of the day, they need to be my companion, Right?

Yeah.

As opposed to someone that's replacing my job.

They need to help me make the right decision.

They need to help me onboard the right solutions in the fastest way.

They need to ensure that I'm actually optimizing my cost for, from onboarding the solution all the way to managing the solution.

They need to ensure that they're actually helping my customers and enabling my customers to understand things like where's their order, you know, what can they modify their order to?

Potentially even creating an order, ultimately it should make things easier as opposed to more complex.

So in a, in a world where things are changing by the minute and everything's getting more complex by the minute, we're looking to AI.

We see the role of AI and modular systems to make it easier for companies to do business by rationalizing all of the data that requires to make the right decisions and influence customers as well as business decisions to the optimal outcomes.

I mean, especially with your example of the spreadsheet.

So instead of managing the spreadsheet and all the complicated what if scenarios that no one could possibly manage, you're basically saying, let's use AI and let them, let's manage the AI to do this more efficiently.

So absolutely.

From spreadsheets to even ages, right, when I, when I pick up the phone and I call someone and I ask them, hey, you know, where's my.

There's some basic information that we can use AI to actually ensure that that agent that's servicing the customer for a basic question can, you know, I can augment that and that same agent can actually go to the more complex and, and more strategic things that I need them to do for me.

Thanks, Omar.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Thank.

You.