Create flexible retail supply chains that are built to last
Martina Klenkhart
Go-to-Market Lead for Retail and Consumer Goods Industries, Microsoft Western Europe
In a powerful storm, a tree that does not bend is likely to break. In 2020, the pandemic put storm-like forces on global supply chains – and many of them simply broke. There were shortages of many household items and commercial supplies, with many retailers forced to ration sales of some products.
This showed how interconnected our world is, and how fragile many supply chains really were. We discovered that lean, just-in-time, highly optimized supply chains weren’t built to cope with such complexity and volatility. One of the most important areas of supply chain resilience is gaining end-to-end visibility, which relies heavily on data.
With our ecosystem partners we make a range of insight-focused tools available including demand-sensing technologies and predictive AI. These help to empower supply chain planners to act quickly and mitigate issues in an agile manner by making it possible for them to collaborate effectively with key stakeholders.
- o9 teamed up with confectionery and chewing gum manufacturer Perfetti Van Melle to transform its supply chain. The o9 Digital Brain Platform provides end-to-end supply chain visibility and scenario planning integrated with financial information, material requirements planning, distribution planning, and multi-echelon inventory optimization.
- Blue Yonder helped Morrisons to reduce out-of-shelf incidents by 30% and has reduced inventory holding by 2-3 days on average. Its Blue Yonder Luminate Control Tower has also helped DIAGEO to improve the bottom line by reducing inventory by 10% and expediting costs by 30%.
- SAS has been working with Barilla to improve global inventory productivity and enable Barilla’s production to be more agile in response to demand changes. Learn more about SAS Intelligent Planning Cloud.
- Toolsgroup enabled Alessi to improve forecast accuracy by nearly 90% and customer service levels by 7 points, while freeing up working capital. Toolsgroup Service Optimizer 99+ also helped the business expansion from Franke resulting in significantly improved forecasting process stability and a 50% reduction to execute forecast and demand planning, while improving the forecast accuracy.
- Board has been supporting Coca-Cola European Partners to automate business planning processes and optimize reporting for full visibility of supply chain activities from production to delivery, and Burberry to streamline assortment planning and replenishment and has been supporting key decisions as part of Burberry’s buying and planning process. Learn more about Board Intelligent Planning Platform.
