Last week, a team from Blue Yonder attended the 2024 Gartner® Supply Chain Planning Summit in London. The theme of this year’s conference was “Generating Value Together: Beyond Accuracy, Toward Intelligence.”

In our opinion, while forecast accuracy used to be the number one priority for supply chain planners, the event put forward the importance of intelligent decision-making to balance multiple objectives when planning — such as margins, cash and growth — to drive real value from operations.

We believe, advanced technology was in the spotlight, as intelligent decision-making in the modern landscape means ingesting huge volumes of data and conducting rigorous analysis, quickly. At Blue Yonder, we recognize that manual planning and consumer-grade spreadsheets simply aren’t up to this challenge. Only artificial intelligence (AI) enabled planning processes can accomplish all the required analysis, at scale and at speed, across the end-to-end supply chain.

AI took center stage — for both its strategic and execution value

Noha Samara, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner, delivered a powerful keynote address called “Reimagining the Role of Supply Chain Planning: The Rise of Decision Shapers.” While AI is readily accessible to just about every business today, in my opinion Samara’s presentation was an important reminder that it needs to be applied thoughtfully and strategically.

HEINEKEN showcases its outstanding demand planning results

With over 700 attendees, the Gartner Supply Chain Planning Summit was a great opportunity to meet with other planning professionals, discuss our common challenges around intelligent planning, learn from industry thought leaders and hear some truly impressive customer success stories.

One of those inspiring stories was presented by HEINEKEN. We were proud to see this Blue Yonder customer take the main stage to showcase its exceptional results from AI-enabled demand planning. With 350 local and global brands, sold in over 190 markets, HEINEKEN is the world’s most international brewer.

While that market size and scale create many revenue opportunities, the resulting complexity means big demand planning challenges. In some markets, HEINEKEN has multiple regional breweries and distributes hundreds of products, while other markets have limited local production and a much smaller product range. Across its nearly 200 markets, HEINEKEN needs to use a common data source and planning platform, apply the same standardized processes, ensure the same analytic rigor and achieve consistent financial results.

HEINEKEN is leveraging Blue Yonder Cognitive Demand Planning, which is powered by AI, to accomplish what seems nearly impossible: Intelligent, dynamic planning on a worldwide scale. In the presentation, Wilko Sierksma, Director of Global Planning, and Corneel Hindriks, Manager of Digital & Technology for Global Planning, discussed how 97% of HEINEKEN’s planning is now done on a global platform, enabled by a strong digital backbone and standardized practices.

By implementing Blue Yonder Cognitive Demand Planning, HEINEKEN is looking to increase its forecast accuracy, reduce forecast bias and — in keeping with the conference theme — make more intelligent, data-driven decisions. By recognizing changes faster across all its markets, the company is improving its ability to respond quickly, intelligently and optimally.

While HEINEKEN is currently rolling out Blue Yonder Cognitive Demand Planning across its global operations, the results look very encouraging so far in terms of forecast accuracy and bias, when compared to its previous planning approach.

A collaborative approach to intelligent planning

At the summit, Blue Yonder moderated a roundtable discussion called “Extending the AI-Enabled Supply Chain to Multiple Trading Partners,” which emphasized the need for suppliers to fully participate in intelligent decision-making. The roundtable focused on the collaborative benefits created by Blue Yonder’s acquisition of One Network Enterprises, which enables our customers to leverage a multi-enterprise network control tower solution.

Participants discussed the challenges of achieving extended visibility in supply chains, highlighting issues like demand volatility, supply variabilities, and the need for better data sharing between retailers, manufacturers and suppliers. They explored how AI can improve forecasting and decision-making, reducing inventory and lead times. The conversation also covered the importance of a pre-connected network for seamless data exchange, reducing integration costs and enhancing collaboration.

The vision: Transforming the supply chain with AI-powered planning​

What did the HEINEKEN presentation and the Blue Yonder roundtable have in common? Both highlighted the potential for truly transforming the supply chain via AI-powered planning. From the incredible complexity of serving global markets to the vastness of the extended supply chain, only AI is capable of modeling modern planning problems and arriving at resolutions in near real time.

Imagine the power of having the entire supply chain:

  • Access a common data cloud and end-to-end platform​
  • Gain AI-powered insights, leading to optimal decisions and actions​
  • Drive a dynamic planning-to-execution cycle across the network​

It may seem like a futuristic vision, but Blue Yonder customers are already leveraging AI to reinvent and reimagine their worldwide supply chains every day. ​They’re viewing their end-to-end operations in real time, optimizing plans and decisions, and replanning dynamically as conditions change.

The Blue Yonder team left London excited and inspired about the potential of AI and intelligent planning to produce transformative results for every business. We’d love to discuss how AI-powered planning can benefit your business. Why not reach out to Blue Yonder to get the conversation started? You can also learn more about our Cognitive Demand Planning solution here.

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