How have you found Kinexions so far?
“It’s been great. The value of having these close, integrated connections with customers has really stood out. There have been some thoughtful discussions around the future of supply chain, where agentic AI fits in and how organisations can better connect their operational plans moving forward.
Workday recently announced a partnership with Kinaxis and have started testing the value proposition and identifying areas where we can create integrated value. We’ve already seen some very positive early signals of success.”
How did the partnership between Workday and Kinaxis originally come about?
“Initially, there was alignment at the highest levels across both organisations. As the conversations developed, both companies looked at the broader planning process within organisations and asked where the choke points exist today.
Typically, there are two distinct personas involved. There’s the supply chain and operations side of the business, and then there’s the broader financial planning component, usually sitting within FP&A. The vision was that there is enormous value in integrating those two areas to maintain the integrity of the overall financial plan.
It’s about using the capacity signals surfaced by Kinaxis and ensuring organisations are operating within cost constraints while still achieving their revenue objectives. Bringing those different perspectives together creates a much more complete planning process.”
Outcomes has been one of the major themes at Kinexions this year. How does that manifest itself through your work with Kinaxis?
“Everything is outcomes-driven. Everything we do through this partnership is focused on delivering return on investment to our shareholders and customers. It’s about understanding how quickly we can get an intent signal from Kinaxis into the supply chain, how rapidly we can ensure the plan remains intact, and how we improve areas such as forecast accuracy. Ultimately, it’s about assembling the right components and jointly driving measurable value.”
How would you describe the working relationship between Workday and Kinaxis?
“It’s great. There’s a lot of familiarity between the two organisations, so we naturally operate with transparency and a shared focus on value and customer outcomes. We have the same customer mindset, which is a relentless focus on results, a strong passion for what we’re doing and a real commitment to innovation. From an agentic perspective, with what we’re doing through Agent Factory and the rollout of agents collectively, there are strong cultural ties as well as shared ambitions around innovation.”
What will you take away from Kinexions that perhaps wasn’t on your radar before arriving?
“We explored different scenarios around agentic orchestration and how we might use Maestro together. For me, one of the biggest insights was recognising the inherent gap between supply chain constraints and capacities identified within Kinaxis, and linking those directly into workforce planning. How does that translate into headcount requirements? Who should we hire? Do we need contingent labour to address a shortfall? That was one of the strongest messages this week.
It’s now about identifying the right customers to co-innovate with and bringing together our innovation teams and agent factories to solve those problems on behalf of our customers.”
If you’re back at Kinexions next year, how do you think the conversations will have evolved?
“I think we’ll move beyond proof-of-concept and pilot discussions around agentic AI and into conversations focused on operational improvements. The question will become: how has this translated into a return on investment? We’ll start to see significant consumption of agentic capabilities and tangible examples of value being delivered. The real progress, from both an ROI and measurable value standpoint, will become much more visible, and that will be fantastic to see…”
Read the full interview here!
- AI in Supply Chain
- Together in Events