Checking in with Pete Sinisgalli

You’ve heard the line from Casablanca: “Round up the usual suspects.” In the supply chain execution software space, there have been a handful of usual suspects in the best-of-breed and ERP space. Anyone who’s been around the industry for any length of time knows who they are, and they do a great job. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be household names.

In recent interviews, I’ve come across new or at the least less-familiar names in our space, especially related to retail and e-commerce supply chain management. One is IBM Sterling, an established name for sure, but one I’m coming across more often with the rise in distributed order management, or DOM. For instance, last summer I wrote about JOANN, one of IBM’s customers. JOANN was also using Salesforce.com. And, speaking of Salesforce, just last week, I had a chance to talk to Mount Adams Fruit. A leading grower of apples, pears and cherries, Mount Adams recently built a highly-automated distribution center to store its fruit before shipment, and is using Salesforce as its system of record. The solution tracks data from growers in the field all the way to cases packed for shipment in the DC. I need to learn more.

And, let’s add Aptos to the list of solutions I need to learn about. The company came across my radar when it hired Pete Sinisgalli as its new CEO. I got to know Pete when he was president and CEO of Manhattan Associates– one of those usual suspects – where he spent about a decade. More recently, he was Chairman of the Board of LLamasoft, which was acquired by Coupa Software in November.

I had a chance to talk to Sinisgalli in late November. First a little about Aptos.

The company bills itself as a leader in retail technology solutions. It is a player in a space I’m unfamiliar with – but want to learn more about – dubbed “Unified Commerce” by the research firm IHL, which forecasts the market to grow 78% to $83 billion by 2024. That’s according to Jerry Sheldon, an IHL analyst quoted in the Aptos press release. Sheldon goes on to say that there are “five essential pillars of Unified Commerce — Store Systems, E-Commerce, Merchandising and Supply Chain, Sales and Marketing, and Business Intelligence/Analytics.” Sheldon adds that Aptos is one of only two vendors that can support retailers across the full spectrum of Unified Commerce, including supply chain. “With notable investments in talent…accelerated product innovation, expanded geographic coverage and strategic acquisitions…Aptos is making all the right moves to support its customers on their Unified Commerce journeys and pandemic-related recoveries,” Sheldon concluded.

That’s a long introduction to my conversation with Sinisgalli. I was interested in catching up with the supply chain veteran because of his experience with Manhattan and LLamasoft, and perhaps his perspective on how the supply chain software space is changing.

I started by asking: Why Aptos? He said that after his decade at Manhattan, followed by another five years at an enterprise company outside the supply chain space, he wanted his next position to be Atlanta-centric, where his family is located; needed to have decent revenues; and needed to be supported by a strong sponsor. “Along with an Atlanta headquarters, Aptos has several hundred million in revenues, and it was bought by Goldman Sachs Private Equity this year,” he said. “The other thing I found intriguing is that with the pandemic, retail is dealing with a lot of material changes, even more than they were dealing with prior to the pandemic. When there are material changes, that’s a time for a solution provider to make hay.”

That focus on retail was another plus. “We’re the leading solution provider specifically focused on retail in the world,” he said. “There are bigger suppliers with retail solutions, like Oracle, but we’re retail specific, and I think that leverages my experience at Manhattan, especially on the distribution side.”

Aptos’s core competency is retail point of sale, or POS. But that has been expanded to include merchandise lifecycle management – that helps retailers allocate product in the store by attributes like style, color and size; solutions for emerging processes like buy online/pickup in store and returns; and some planning and execution, such as WMS.

“We’re focused on the store experience, the web experience and the universal commerce experience,” Sinisgalli said. He added that the company recently went to market with a store fulfillment app for ship from store, pickup in store and curbside pickup orders.

As a last question, I asked Sinisgalli to step back and provide a high-level perspective on what’s happening in the supply chain software space. “Big picture, I think the industry is moving in the same direction it has been since the 1990’s when I entered the field,” he said. “The objective is still the perfect order – the right product at the right place at the right time to delight the customer. All of the great technologies we’re familiar with, like PLM, CRM and WMS, continue to evolve. New technologies, like artificial intelligence, further advance that cause. They’re allowing us to channel data together to get a better picture of the customer’s need and deliver the perfect order to optimize the customer experience. Aptos does that.”