Optiant's strategic partner, SAP, also presented during the executive roundtable to support the seamless integration between SAP and Optiant's PowerChain Suite. SAP discussed the value of inventory optimization for manufacturers who rely on both Optiant and SAP® solutions to manage operations

"The event was a great opportunity for Optiant to listen to its customers and share the best practices for implementing our PowerChain solutions," said Sean Willems Ph.D., Optiant Co-Founder and Chief Scientist. "Our goal was to provide a collaborative platform for our customers to share ideas, deployment tactics and organizational methods. The event was an amazing success."

Emerging from the roundtable were four key themes:

• Become the "office with the answers" for the Executive team. Because data-driven decisions can often be difficult and time-consuming, many business decisions get made without a full understanding of trade-offs and repercussions. Being able to provide rapid analysis and detailed answers for key business questions to executive management at unprecedented speed is now a very real possibility.
• Go above and beyond inventory targets. Precise inventory targets are necessary to run a supply chain optimally. Additionally, that same supply chain model can easily be used to perform robust analytics and answer critical supply chain questions that will bring a business to the next level.
• Evolve from a focus on the outputs to a focus on the inputs. Once users gain comfort with the capabilities and credibility of the technology, they are able to graduate to a state of maturity of focusing on critical drivers of the supply chain rather than validating the technology and resulting outputs.
• Extend value to the entire enterprise. Since the supply chain and its performance impact the entire enterprise, it is imperative to have a platform for common understanding throughout all levels of the enterprise. Supply chain experts can now communicate supply chain impacts to all functions within the company.

Following the customer presentation, Dr. Willems led the discussion covering such topics as selecting and defining service levels, planning for unexpected events, deploying the PowerChain Suite throughout the extended enterprise, and best practices for measuring results.

Optiant is a pioneer in the emerging market of supply chain design and optimization and was recently named to Manufacturing Business Technology's "Top 40 Emerging Software Vendors". Optiant's flagship software solution, the PowerChain® suite, enables global organizations to design and configure optimal supply chains, solving real-world problems today. PowerChain determines cost-effective inventory placements and integrates supply chain strategy into sourcing and distribution processes for quantifiable results in less than ninety days. PowerChain solutions are built on patent-pending optimization technology based on more than ten years of leading-edge research and industry partnerships at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.