Supply chain leader launches AI and ML-powered capabilities tailored to help retailers turn chaos into clarity across their end-to-end networks
Kinaxis Inc., the leading supply chain management platform, announced an expansion of its retail offering with the release of multiple new AI- and ML-powered innovations that provide retailers with end-to-end supply chain transparency, demand forecasting, and powerful simulation scenario planning capabilities to ensure customers can buy the goods they want, when and where they want them, regardless of unforeseen disruptions.
“We’re eager to roll out these state-of-the-art capabilities to some of our largest customers and anticipate that they will immediately see the value they bring to their overall business.”
From unpredictable demand spikes driven by changing consumer habits and the rise of omni-channel commerce that seeks to provide a seamless shopping experience across multiple touchpoints, the retail landscape has never been more competitive, with retailers’ supply chains facing countless challenges that threaten their ability to keep customers happy and turn a profit.
Designed to simplify retailers’ ability to successfully manage the complexity of countless locations, SKUs, promotions and inventory variables that demand unparalleled decision-making, Kinaxis’ enhanced retail offering now includes:
- Demand.AI innovations – powerful machine-learning based models tailored to the scale and complexity of retailers that enables better understanding of how both internal (e.g. frequent price changes, new product introductions, changes to promotional plans) and external factors (e.g. social sentiment, weather, shifts in consumer behavior, local/national events) are influencing short and long-term demand for their products, and which can inform actions to maximize revenue opportunities and proactively resolve risks.
- Replenishment Planning – an all-new capability that enables retailers to better manage replenishment parameters across their supply chain to ensure every item at every store and distribution center gets restocked in a timely manner while establishing guardrails to protect stores from shipping excess inventory that would exceed their shelf-life capacity and increase their inventory holding costs.
- Demand Planning innovations – provides retailers with easy-to-interpret visualizations that explain demand patterns while enabling them to make instant adjustments to forecasts based on human insights around trends at any part of their supply chains, by product, geography, store, SKU, day and more.
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“Faced with ever increasing consumer expectations, today’s retailers are in desperate need of solutions that enable them to make confident decisions around their supply chains at scale,” said Andrew Bell, chief product officer at Kinaxis. “With these latest innovations, businesses will finally be able to take the guesswork out of demand and replenishment planning with a view to creating a seamless and resilient end-to-end supply chain. And with additional investments on the horizon in promotion planning and allocation, we’re confident that retailers will continue to look to Kinaxis to help them provide their customers with the best products while ensuring their shelves are always fully stocked.”
The new retail-focused product innovations will enable Kinaxis to strengthen its position within the sector including with new customers like sporting goods leader Brooks Running and existing partners like HAVI, one of the world’s foremost experts in supply chain integration. Last year, Kinaxis and HAVI announced they were joining forces to innovate and transform the Quick Service Restaurant industry.
“With the pace of doing business speeding up and consumer behavior changing by the minute, companies can no longer rely on incremental improvements to their supply chain, which is why we were so thrilled to partner with Kinaxis who have proven their mettle for meeting the demanding needs of customers regardless of the industry,” said Rodney Brown, senior vice president and chief supply chain officer, North America and global planning and analytics at HAVI. “We’re eager to roll out these state-of-the-art capabilities to some of our largest customers and anticipate that they will immediately see the value they bring to their overall business.”
With more than 40,000 users in 100+ countries, Kinaxis works with some of the world’s biggest brands across all sectors including CPG, automotive, high tech, life sciences and more. Its AI-powered technology and patented concurrency technique allows companies to orchestrate their supply chain network end to end from strategic planning to last-mile delivery.
