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471: Future-Proof your TMS for Tomorrow’s Challenges, with Manhattan Associates

471: Future-Proof your TMS for Tomorrow’s Challenges, with Manhattan Associates

Jun 09, 2025

Kristin Kay is a Senior Design Lead at Manhattan Associates with 14 years of experience in the company's professional services group. She specializes in the transportation life cycle management suite and has implemented numerous TMS projects for clients across various industries, including grocery and retail. Kay advocates for viewing the supply chain as a competitive advantage by breaking down operational silos through unified, cloud-native systems. She emphasizes that true innovation happens through close partnership and transparent communication with customers, enabling a continuous feedback loop that makes systems adaptable and future-proof.

471: Future-Proof your TMS for Tomorrow’s Challenges, with Manhattan Associates

Today I’m joined by Manhattan Associates, a company that connects over 2 billion people to over 20 billion consumer choices.

Manhattan provide more than just supply chain solutions. Through advanced cloud-native technology, and a cutting-edge vision for supply chain unification, Manhattan’s team of experienced industry experts are dedicated to equipping their partners with the tools needed to navigate the supply chain commerce world effectively.

Today, Kristin Kay, Senior Design Lead at Manhattan Associates, will be talking all about Manhattan’s Active Transportation Management solution. We’ll be discussing why transportation is more complex than ever before, and your biggest TMS challenges. I’ll be asking Kristin about embracing customer-driven enhancements, and leveraging the power of automated testing. And we’ll be exploring why continuous innovation is key to creating systems fit for the future.

Guest bio:

Kristin Kay is a Design Lead at Manhattan Associates, specializing in the Transportation Lifecycle Management suite. In her time, Kristin has implemented multiple TMS projects for an array of Manhattan clients across many industries including grocery and retail. She has a degree in Mathematical Sciences with a focus in Operations Research and Management from Clemson University.

04:20

An introduction to Kristin, and Manhattan Associates.

We don’t view supply chain as a cost center – it can be a competitive advantage, if you start to remove some of the siloes between your solutions.
06:18

The biggest impacts on the transportation industry right now, and why the industry is more complex than ever before.

It’s a whirlwind! We have a lot of different things coming into play. Macro economic shifts, sky high customer expectations, pressure to hit sustainability targets… Depending on the industry, the days of just managing your transportation are gone.
09:17

Why Transportation Management Systems often come with their own set of problems, and the biggest TMS challenges Manhattan see with their customers.

Whatever challenge comes up, sometimes that challenge isn’t the biggest problem. The problem is how inflexible either your systems or operations are. If they’re inflexible, you don’t have options.” “The burden of maintaining integrations between all of these systems takes a lot of time. We find that teams are spending more time managing their systems and TMS than managing their freight. And that can be a red flag wherever you have volatility.” “As things change, your pendulum swings between ‘I really need to save money’ to ‘I really need to give service to customers’… But there is an answer between speed and cost, and we need to be able to react to that.
12:58

What connectivity and integration speed and ease looks like with Manhattan’s Active TMS, and the impact on key focus areas like visibility, collaboration and flexibility.

Transportation is a team sport… And that connectivity is the heartbeat of agility.” “If you’re going to do any software implementation, decide: ‘What are my key KPIs, how do I know what’s right, how do I build that confidence?’ So that when I turn that switch on, I’m getting those benefits – not just creating more questions.
16:57

Manual versus automated testing, how automated testing works with Manhattan, and the business benefits of continuous validation and accelerated deployments.

19:37

How automated testing can help to reduce risk and allow businesses to make informed, data-driven decisions in a climate filled with risk and unexpected disruption.

23:34

The importance of communication and transparency, the power of partnership, and how customer-driven enhancements make Manhattan’s Active Transportation Management unique.

True innovation can’t happen in isolation, it happens through partnership.” “It really comes down to the end user experience. If that’s bad, it doesn’t matter how good your integration is, or how great your reporting is, or how fast you can change. If people don’t like using the product, you’re going to have trouble.
27:29

Why scalability means more than just scaling up or down, and how continuous innovation helps businesses with future-proofing, allowing them to stay ahead of the game without having to constantly overhaul systems.

32:24

What Manhattan’s synchronization of operations and end-to-end unification mean for teams and businesses.

35:59

A case study exploring how Manhattan helped a grocery client shift their mindset, unify, embrace dynamic planning and unlock big benefits.

40:08

What we can expect from Manhattan in the second half of 2025.

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