Blue Yonder’s Key Takeaways from the 2024 Gartner® Supply Chain Planning Summit
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…
How Cooperative Supply Chains Are Transforming Retail and Logistics
This blog has been adapted from a talk given at the Leaders in Logistics: Last Mile event. In the past, meeting up with friends meant setting a specific time and place and hoping everyone showed up as planned. In today’s world, we continuously update one…
5 Steps for Retailers to Optimize Marketplace Returns and Protect Their Brand
In our last marketplaces post, we covered why many retailers are establishing marketplaces for third-party sellers to offer their products through. The opportunities for growth are undeniable, but there are challenges to overcome to maximize the marketplace approach. Foremost among them is the question of…
Why Retailer-Owned Marketplaces are Taking Over – and What to Watch Out For
The number of retailer-owned third-party marketplaces, in which retailers list products from other sellers within their platform or website, has risen over the past few years. Many big-name retailers now have their own marketplace platforms, including Tesco, Boots, Superdrug, B&Q, and The Range in the…
Retailers Beware: Returns Fraud on the Rise As Criminals Get More Creative
Returns already have a significant impact on retailers’ bottom line. National Retail Federation (NRF) data reveals that for every $1 billion in sales, retailers incur an average of $145 million in merchandise returns. To make matters worse, returns fraud is also on the rise. Last…
Facing Industrial Manufacturing’s Dilemma: Nailing Down Forecasting Accuracy
It’s been two centuries since the Industrial Revolution transformed manufacturing, introducing machines that automated production and unlocked unprecedented efficiencies. But in the last decade, the industrial manufacturing sector has encountered a new wave of challenges and disruptions. From fluctuating demand and rising costs to material…
Are You Serving Today’s Shoppers on Yesterday’s Technology?
Category management has reached an inflection point. In a volatile context characterized by rapidly shifting customer demands and expectations, rising prices, strained margins, ongoing supply chain instability, and increasing fulfillment complexity, getting the right product into the right place at exactly the right time is…
Why Demand Planning in High Tech Manufacturing Needs a Reboot
The global chip shortage a few years ago shone a spotlight on the supply chain planning complexity that has always characterized High Tech companies. It is difficult for semiconductor companies, consumer device manufacturers, and other High Tech companies to profitability match supply with demand, especially…
From Aisle to AI: How CPGs Can Conquer Demand Variability
Extreme demand volatility and unprecedented supply chain disruptions make it tough for many manufacturers to get the demand-supply balance right. Consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies face especially difficult forecasting and demand planning challenges. Every day, CPG planners must contend with the complexities of omni-channel sales…
The ILA Walkout Emphasizes the Need To Be Prepared for Disruptions
On Tuesday, the U.S. lost half of its ocean shipping capacity when the 45,000 members of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) went on strike at 13 major East Coast container ports, stretching from Texas to Maine. While the walkout has been looming since June, the strike…