Ruchi Dholakia serves as senior manager, reseller operations for Apple, tasked with handling a multi-billion-dollar portfolio of Apple’s largest telecom customers, overseeing operations from the supply chain perspective. She leads a team of supply and demand planners focused on managing Apple’s most strategic distributor partnerships. Together, they handle all aspects of inventory management, collaborative planning, forecasting, and replenishment.
Over the past 12 months, Dholakia has made significant strides, particularly with the implementation of an innovative SFTP-based end-to-end planning system. This initiative successfully onboarded Apple’s largest telecom customer, streamlining their supply request process and seamlessly integrating it into Apple’s internal systems. This project, which took 11 months to complete, has resulted in significant time and efficiency savings for both Apple and its largest global partner, eliminating manual processes and reducing the potential for errors.
Looking ahead, Dholakia plans to focus on AI/ML-based solutions to address some of the most common challenges in inventory and supply chain management. She envisions applying machine learning models and advanced analytics to optimize critical areas such as inventory planning, days of supply, and store-level stocking strategies for Apple’s reseller partners. By implementing these solutions, Dholakia aims to help Apple and its partners manage inventory more efficiently, improve factory output, and reduce the issues associated with excess inventory.
We talked exclusively with Dholakia about applying machine learning models and advanced analytics and what it takes to implement secure file transfer protocol services.
