Leading retailer strengthens agility with AI and machine learning to improve allocation and replenishment decisions across its network and brands

PORTO, Portugal & DALLAS: MC, the retail division of Sonae and a leading player in Portugal’s grocery market and health, wellness, and beauty retail across the Iberian Peninsula, has selected Blue Yonder Cognitive Solutions for Allocation and Replenishment to advance its supply chain transformation. With more than 400 stores across multiple formats, MC operates major supermarkets and hypermarkets such as Continente, along with convenience stores, health and wellness shops, and online grocery services. Blue Yonder’s advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) enabled solutions will help the company improve visibility into demand forecasting. The new solutions will be implemented by Blue Yonder Services.

“The grocery retail sector is adapting to a period of significant change, underlining the need for more agile operations across the supply chain. We needed end-to-end visibility and faster, more accurate inventory planning to address demand uncertainty while prioritizing our business goals,” said Sofia Castro, Head of Supply Chain, at MC. "We were impressed by Blue Yonder’s patented AI and machine learning forecasting capabilities, which help us establish a single source of truth and coordinate decision-making across demand and supply planning. They support our need to serve every part of our retail portfolio, enabling our teams to deliver results more efficiently.”

Blue Yonder Allocation and Replenishment solution, powered by the Blue Yonder Platform, offers a multi-echelon inventory planning solution that enables retailers to manage inventory with visibility into constraints across the supply chain. Planners can automate product flow throughout its lifecycle to optimize full-price sales by using forecasts based on actual sales.

With Blue Yonder, MC will be able to achieve the following benefits:

• Increase customer loyalty by having the right product in the right place at the right time, improving inventory fit to regional demand, and preventing spoilage of date-sensitive inventory to reduce waste
• Reduce manual intervention by considering constraints at the time of calculation
• Increase inventory turns by accounting for demand uncertainty and optimizing inventory investment
• Leverage ML-based behavioral clustering to analyze more supply chain planning data than traditional rule-based systems, improving assortment mapping to seasonal buying trends and accelerating inventory turnover
• Maximize efficiency with seamless workflows across various teams.

“This initiative by MC reflects a broader trend in which leading retailers are increasingly adopting AI and machine learning-driven solutions to address grocery and retail challenges," said Terry Turner, President, Global CPG, Life Sciences and Grocery, Blue Yonder. "With Blue Yonder, MC will gain AI and machine learning-powered analytics and predictive insights, enabling the company to anticipate market trends and optimize decision-making to exceed customer expectations consistently.”

Additional Resources:

• Learn more about Blue Yonder‘s AI capabilities
• Learn more about Blue Yonder’s solutions for grocery and convenience

About MC

MC is a leader in the food retail sector in Portugal and operates a portfolio of food retail formats (Continente, Continente Modelo, Continente Bom Dia, Continente Online and Meu Super), health, wellness and beauty businesses (Wells, Arenal and Druni), as well as other complementary growth businesses (Bagga, Go Natural and note!).

About Blue Yonder

Blue Yonder is the AI company for supply chain. As the world leader in end-to-end digital supply chain transformation, Blue Yonder offers a unified, AI-driven platform and multi-tier network that empowers businesses to operate sustainably, scale profitably, and delight their customers-all at machine speed. A pioneer in applying AI solutions to the most complicated supply chain challenges, Blue Yonder’s modern innovations and unmatched industry expertise help more than 3,000 retailers, manufacturers, and logistics service providers confidently navigate supply chain complexity and disruption. blueyonder.com

“Blue Yonder” is a trademark or registered trademark of Blue Yonder Group, Inc. Any trade, product or service name referenced in this document using the name “Blue Yonder” is a trademark and/or property of Blue Yonder Group, Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks of the companies with which they are associated.

Fonte: Business Wire