The pandemic is accelerating the need to closely align supply and demand -- a task Coupa's acquisition of Llamasoft seeks to address by putting procurement and supply chain technology in one place. "Combined, the two companies can shorten the lead time between supply chain decision and execution by having all the data in one system," according to the release. Companies with Llamasoft can use artificial intelligence to map, model and create digital twins of their supply chains. Mapping and running scenarios have been important to supply chain visibility and risk mitigation for several years, but, like many factors, the pandemic has amplified their significance. Coupa has been working with customers on linking inventory management and procurement via software to avoid wasted spend.

Microsoft and the US Department of Energy grabbed headlines by announcing a partnership to develop AI-powered applications to help first responders reacting to natural disasters. One of the first AI prototypes in development will employ computer vision to detect and predict the frontiers of active wildfires and floods. The second application uses an AI tool that should be in every risk manager's toolbox: simulation. This simulator will aid teams in running mock scenarios to better plan and prepare for the next big natural disaster. Many companies were caught flat-footed by COVID-19, perhaps the largest disruption to global trade in a hundred years.

Coupa Software has acquired AI-powered supply chain design and planning startup LLamasoft for $1.5 Billion. Founded in 2002, Michigan headquartered LLamasoft offers an AI-powered Enterprise Decision Platform. The company has raised a total of $56.1 million in funding to date, according to CrunchBase. Organizations can leverage the llama.ai Chairman and CEO at Coupa, Rob Bernshteyn, said, "We are witnessing an unprecedented shift in what businesses are demanding to effectively manage their supply chains. They need instant visibility, agile planning capabilities, and timely risk mitigation support. LLamasoft's deep supply chain expertise and sophisticated data science and modeling capabilities, combined with the roughly $2 trillion of cumulative transactional spend data we have in Coupa, will empower businesses with the intelligence needed to pivot on a dime. Together, we will deliver a more powerful Business Spend Management platform to help organizations everywhere maximize the value of every dollar they spend in a smarter, simpler, and safer way."

Coupa Software (NASDAQ: COUP), a leader in Business Spend Management (BSM), announced that it has acquired LLamasoft, a leader in AI-powered supply chain design and planning for a purchase price of approximately $1.5 billion. Based in Ann Arbor, Mich., LLamasoft's technology is used by hundreds of enterprise customers, including brands such as Boeing, Danone S.A., Home Depot, and Nestle. The acquisition will strengthen Coupa's supply chain capabilities, enabling businesses to drive greater value through Business Spend Management. The events of this year continue to demonstrate the importance of supply chain agility, as companies work to more rapidly adapt to changing consumer preferences, economic conditions, and the political landscape. With demand uncertainty on one hand and supply volatility on the other, companies are in need of supply chain technology that can help them assess alternatives and balance trade-offs to achieve desired business results.

Llamasoft's software helps companies model, design and optimize their supply-chain networks, using AI and algorithms to map out scenarios and mitigate potential risks. The Ann Arbor, Mich., company is backed by private-equity fund TPG Capital, which took a stake in 2017, and counts Boeing Co., Danone SA and Home Depot Inc. among its customers. This is Coupa's third acquisition this year. The company's platform helps businesses manage procurement, invoicing, payments, sourcing and other spending functions and has more than $1.95 trillion in cumulative spending by its customers under management. "We've pulled all these siloed processes together," Coupa CEO Rob Bernshteyn said.

Looked at on a world scale, the Covid-19 pandemic will continue to deliver shocks to global supply chains for some time to come. Even if the public health crisis abates in the UK, our economy is part of a global economy, and UK corporate IT will have its work cut out in supporting companies as they are forced to re-forge supply chains, perhaps over and over again, and at short notice. The crisis has provoked some rethinking of how the world economy ought to work, with an emphasis on the desirability of a shift from efficiency – doing things "just in time" – to resilience – building in more slack. The FT's Rana Faroohar provides an account of such rethinking in an article entitled From'just in time' to'just in case' published earlier this year. In the discussions which lie behind this article there are different emphases on a spectrum of opinion: some say we can have both efficiency and resilience equally, others that there is a choice to be made for one or the other, and yet others say it's a matter of balance, of trading off. Tony Harris, global vice-president of business network solutions at SAP, says it has to be a combination. "You wouldn't want to move to a resilient network or supply chain that wasn't also efficient," he says.

LLamasoft published the results of a global retail supply chain study, which revealed that 73% of retailers believe artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning can add significant value to their demand forecasting processes. Meanwhile, over half say it will improve 8 other critical supply chain capabilities. The research also found that while 56% of overperforming retailers, also known as'retail winners', use technology to model contingency plans for severe supply chain interruptions, a mere 31% of retailers who are not overperforming do the same. Overall, 56% of retailers surveyed are struggling with the ability to respond to rapid shifts, and the lack of flexibility has cost them during the disruptions such as COVID-19, with many seeing a huge drop in revenue as a result. In addition, 73% of'retail winners' have the foresight and ability to monitor capacity, which allows them to prepare for sudden shifts in demand and supply, compared to 35% of'other' or'under-performing' retailers.