A few weeks ago, I sat down to speak with Mike Noble, SVP of Technology and Jonathan Mitchell, Director of Software Services at Open Sky Group. In this conversation, we discussed seeing your supply chain through a new lens, and how this can help to achieve improved visibility.

Specifically, I asked Mile and Jonathan to give me some background on Open Sky Group, as well as a rundown of the Kaleidoscope platform, and the different components that link the end to end supply chain. Below are some of the key takeaways from our discussion, as well as a little background on the supply chain technology consulting and systems integration market. You can also watch the full video below.

Supply Chain Technology Consulting and Systems Integration Market

ARC Advisory Group’s research on the independent WMS consultant market, what we call WMS Consulting Specialists, shows that these companies deliver value to their clients through their domain expertise and relative independence. WMS Consulting Specialists serve as trusted advisors to their clients, driving multi-faceted projects from concept to go-live and beyond. At the same time, their relative independence supports the third-party objectivity that is so valuable to companies embarking on strategic projects.

Independent WMS consultants understand the intricacies of the WMS applications and the platforms on which they operate. Very often they have developed and refined their implementation processes over years of experience. As such, each consultancy has unique elements in its methodology.   Consultancies have also taken their experiences a step further and standardized their knowledge and capabilities into products. These products are typically software applications that extend the capabilities of the WMS vendors with industry-specific functionality or integrative enhancements that further the value of WMS and adjacent technologies.

About Open Sky Group

Open Sky Group is a supply chain technology company, boasting a carefully curated portfolio with best-of-breed partners and cutting-edge SaaS platforms. The company’s diverse operational expertise in multiple supply chain solutions empowers its customers’ operations with proven service.

At Open Sky Group, supply chain experts are dedicated to revolutionizing the way companies manage their supply chain. Open Sky is a global specialist in Blue Yonder supply chain platform. The company offers a unique methodology of disciplined agility and a no modifications approach that enables rapid implementation and upgrade of Blue Yonder WMS, WLM, WFM and TMS for a faster ROI.

Introduction to Kaleidoscope

Open Sky Group’s Kaleidoscope evolved from their experience trying to solve customers’ multi-instance challenges. These companies had multiple systems and no way to connect them. It morphed into solving customers’ call center volumes by providing a self-serve portal to address issues that occurred in real time. Kaleidoscope closes the blind spots traditional WMS’s leave behind. Additionally, Kaleidoscope is not just a product; it is a vision and journey, that Open Sky is embarking on to invest and partner. The goal is to shed light on any blind spots and elevate connectivity across the supply chain.

Kaleidoscope as a Platform

Kaleidoscope is a cloud SaaS offering that is secure. The most visible elements are the four lenses: Enhanced Client Billing, Supply Chain Portal, Supply Chain Insight, and Supply Chain Chat. The lenses are all built around the common Kaleidoscope core platform, which is responsible for extracting, storing, and indexing an entire supply chain’s worth of data. Kaleidoscope supports a diversified supply chain, including mixed vendors across different verticals. Kaleidoscope supports the selection of best-of-breed per vertical, and provides transparency across WMS, TMS and LMS solutions.

Enhanced Client Billing

With the flexibility of our supply chain agnostic connectors Enhanced Client Billing provides a comprehensive billing platform across the supply chain. Leveraging any piece of data into a base-event allows easy configuration of any number of billable activities that can feed into client facing invoices. The system guard rails detect events not configured for specific clients, or missing rate information, notifying you of potential revenue leakage. Enhanced Client Billing supports grouping transactions into different levels of charge groups and general ledger codes, along with a robust public API supports easy integration with your payment processing systems. Combined with Supply Chain Portal, 3PL clients have self-service capabilities similar to your online banking.

Supply Chain Portal

Supply Chain Portal can make your data interactive and support day-in-the-life solutions. Supply Chain Portal supports secure, selective exposure of your data to your end customers. Additionally, Supply Chain Portal can tie together the loose ends of your supply chain.