Driving Business Transformation through Technology

Career and Technology Leadership

I've always been drawn to environments where technology can create real business transformation. Before Altipal, I was fortunate to lead several digital initiatives across retail and CPG sectors, which taught me the value of connecting technological innovation directly to business outcomes.

When I first encountered Altipal, I was immediately impressed by their pioneering spirit. They had already developed SurtiApp when many competitors still relied on manual processes. What sold me on joining the team was a conversation with our CEO Jorge Palacio, who didn't view technology as a cost center but as a strategic differentiator.

That perspective aligns perfectly with my belief that technology leadership today is about being a business leader first, a technology expert second. In distribution, where margins are typically tight, the ability to leverage technology for competitive advantage is absolutely critical.

Challenges and Technology Solutions in Distribution

The distribution sector is facing unprecedented pressure from multiple directions. Customer expectations are rising exponentially while market volatility makes planning increasingly difficult. The ability to adapt quickly is no longer a competitive advantage – it's a survival requirement.

At Altipal, we're building what I call 'operational agility' through our technology investments. Our adaptive AI systems help us respond to market changes in near real-time, adjusting inventory levels, routing, and pricing dynamically.

  ​Technology leadership today is about being a business leader first, a technology expert second  

The omnichannel revolution presents another significant challenge. Customers expect seamless experiences regardless of how they interact with us. Our integrated platform approach eliminates the friction points that typically exist between channels, creating a unified experience.

Perhaps most pressing is the sustainability imperative. Consumers and regulators are demanding greener operations, which requires rethinking everything from route optimization to packaging. Our technology roadmap includes several initiatives specifically focused on measuring and reducing our environmental footprint.

Technology Innovation and Strategy at Altipal

Rather than thinking about individual technologies, we approach our technology architecture as an integrated ecosystem designed to deliver specific business capabilities.

At the foundation is our hybrid cloud infrastructure, which combines the security and performance of on-premises systems with the scalability and flexibility of cloud platforms. We project that this approach will reduce our infrastructure costs by 30% over the next two years while improving system reliability.

What I am particularly proud of is ORUS, our proprietary internal super-application that will serve as a unified interface for employees. We are in the process of transitioning from having multiple interfaces and applications and we project that in two years we will end up with a single intuitive interface that brings together all the functions they need, facilitating user interactions with information systems, all of this configured on a modern, lightweight, scalable and cost-efficient architecture.

Our AI capabilities are another area where we've made tremendous progress. We've developed specialized models for demand forecasting, customer segmentation, and product recommendation that operate within our data ecosystem. These AI solutions have improved forecast accuracy and enhanced the customer experience.

The exciting thing is that we are just beginning to see what is possible. Our innovation lab is currently working on several initiatives that could be truly transformative, from machine vision systems for optimizing inventory taking and handling to advanced natural language processing (NLP) for automating customer service.