Continuing to challenge the status quo in enterprise software, Snowflake is jumping into the supply chain applications business via a partnership with Blue Yonder that CEO Frank Slootman says will address “an incredibly high-volume opportunity.”
The supply chain push is an outgrowth of Snowflake’s new industry-specific Manufacturing Data Cloud. Calling supply chain management a “data problem,” Slootman called it “one of the few remaining realms in enterprise software that has struggled to platform itself.”
And the optimal platform for modern supply chains, reckons the disruptive-minded Slootman, is a combination of Snowflake’s purpose-built Manufacturing Data Cloud and the sophisticated supply chain apps from Blue Yonder.
This new gambit from Snowflake extends Slootman’s assault on traditional enterprise software:
- The first industry upheaval triggered by Snowflake was the launch of its Data Cloud product and strategy, which caused most of the Cloud Wars Top 10 companies to rapidly reimagine their own positions in that vital space
- Then Snowflake shook up the app-dev field by creating a set of tools allowing Snowflake to become an app-dev platform for its customers and partners
- Now, Slootman believes that Snowflake’s close partnership with Blue Yonder will allow the two companies to deliver together what neither could have done individually
But I get the feeling that Slootman is just getting started. Because, as he discussed all this late last month during Snowflake’s FY24 Q1 earnings call, he also declared that the data revolution that is reshaping the business world, plus the intense swing toward industry-specific solutions, have combined to redefine quite dramatically what Snowflake itself is:
“With our Manufacturing Cloud, Snowflake continues to evolve from being a data cloud to also being an operational hub for large enterprises and institutions.”
If you like big dreams, then you gotta love that new vision from Slootman: From data cloud to “operational hub for large enterprises and institutions.” And to be sure, supply chains have become the very foundation — both physical and digital — for the operations of large enterprises and institutions.
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Enter Blue Yonder as another piece in supporting Snowflake’s audacious vision. Here’s how Slootman explained it:
“Blue Yonder is a key participant in both the manufacturing and the retail data clouds. They are the first major supply chain provider to make this commitment to creating the end-to-end supply chain platform on Snowflake. Supply chain management is a highly networked discipline as the chains are typically comprised of numerous different entities. We, therefore, expect significant network effects from the strategic alliance with Blue Yonder.”
Later in the earnings call, Slootman expanded on what he called a “fantastic historical opportunity” for his company and its customers.
“Supply chains are all somewhat unique, and the data-siloing problem prevents the supply chain visibility that is so essential to managing it,” Slootman said.
Calling the approach many organizations are currently deploying “an email/spreadsheet operation,” Slootman said, “It’s incredibly inefficient, and it’s in incredibly high-volume opportunity.”
The sand in the global supply chain gears, Slootman said, is data — or rather, the fragmentation of essential data into silos and the resulting lack of visibility. But that problem all goes away he said, if everybody would just wise up and become Snowflake customers!
“If you can’t establish visibility across all the entities that make up a supply chain, then you stand no chance of solving that problem,” he said.
“So the reason I find this situation so interesting for Snowflake is that all of those entities in the supply chain will at some point become Snowflake accounts, right? Because that’s the way everybody will be able to gain visibility into everybody else.”
Now, is that just a delusion of grandeur? Coming from some executives, it might be. But Frank Slootman has built a very successful career out of making big and bold bets — what some might call outlandish — and coming out on the winning side.
“But we think we have a real fighting chance of solving it,” he said.
“Plus, the processes that run in supply chain management are extremely computationally intensive, and they also run in very, very high volumes.
“Well, Snowflake was built to take on exactly those kinds of workloads.”
In fact, Slootman even suggested that “in the fullness of time,” supply chain management will overtake financial services as the being the most interconnected and interdependent industry that Snowflake serves.
“And that,” he said, “is because there’s absolutely no penetration right there in the supply chain space. These are unsolved problems perhaps more so than any other in the history of computing.
“So that’s how serious that is, and it’s a fantastic historical opportunity for the technology industry to address.”
