Many businesses think that transitioning away from legacy systems means ripping everything out and starting again. That approach creates more disruption than it solves.
Supply chains must be able to respond to changing demand, supplier disruption, geopolitical pressure, and rising customer expectations. If teams are working from outdated information, they’re always going to be behind the problem.
Many assume AI will automatically solve supply chain challenges. But AI requires context, and context is data. Modern supply chains increasingly depend on data in real time, whilst it’s relevant, rather than hours after the event.
Successful transitions will therefore prioritise visibility and access to data first. Once businesses can see, control, and trust the data moving through the organisation, they’re in a much stronger position to modernise gradually and make faster decisions.
Confluent research has found that 85 percent of decision-makers believe they’d make better decisions if they were able to base them on real-time data. Many legacy systems still play an important role, but they were built for a slower pace of business, where data could be processed in batches.
That’s why the transition is less about replacing every system overnight, and more about creating a real-time view across operations.
Richard Jones
Vice President of Sales for Northern Europe, Confluent
About Richard Jones
Richard Jones is VP of Sales for Northern Europe at Confluent, with more than two decades of experience leading technology sales organisations. Previously, he held senior leadership roles at Oracle and Astute Solutions, specialising in go-to-market strategy, sales growth, and customer engagement across international markets.
About Confluent
Confluent, an IBM company, is the pioneer of data streaming and the commercial leader behind Apache Kafka. Its platform enables enterprises to connect and process real-time data across applications, analytics, and AI systems, helping organisations turn data-in-motion into business value.
The Question is a thought leadership series published on Supply Chain Outlook, created to explore the questions shaping global logistics, procurement, transportation, and supply networks.
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