From our experience, the best ROI comes from supply chain solutions with cloud-native, event-driven core, selective AI, and right-sized service boundaries.
We typically recommend our clients start with cloud-managed services, including data warehouse/lakehouse, streams/queues, serverless compute, and managed Kubernetes (when needed). These technologies allow them to cut ops toil and human error as well as ship faster. Additionally, we suggest using event streaming (Kafka/Kinesis/Event Hubs plus MQTT) so WMS/TMS/ERP, IoT, and partners publish/subscribe in real time.
REST/GraphQL APIs and following domain-driven design are also desirable for custom solutions. You can begin with a modular monolith, then peel off microservices only where team autonomy, scaling, or release cadence demands it. That avoids coordination tax and over-engineering.
In terms of AI, our team would recommend applying it where the need is strong, and the payoff for employee productivity, enhanced customer experience, and business needs is clear: ETA prediction, demand sensing, slotting, dynamic routing, and exception detection. For securing these functionalities, it is desirable to operate models with feature stores, MLOps, and human-in-the-loop controls
Other must-haves for ROI are observability (metrics/logs/traces), CI/CD with canaries, security/compliance by design, and cost governance. This stack typically shrinks cycle times, reduces outages, and saves on fuel, labor, and inventory.
