Partner Article

Forward Demand: A data-driven application for demand planning

Blue Yonder, a leading SaaS supplier of Predictive Analytics solutions for business users, today announced its latest solution, Forward Demand, for precise sales planning for retailers and producers of consumer goods. Forward Demand provides granular forecasts that enable organisations to avoid costly over or understocking errors. Forward Demand’s clear and simple design gives business users a quick overview of all relevant planning factors and allows them to optimise their product dispatch in real-time. Forward Demand can analyse sales history and also take into account additional factors, such as individual campaigns or holidays that may impact the accuracy of forecasts.

Blue Yonder’s latest SaaS solution allows for a quick return on investment, as it significantly improves sales planning by basing decisions on precise and solid forecasts. Organisations can reduce stock levels and write-offs by up to 20 percent, while increasing turnover by never running out of stock. Forward Demand also helps dispatchers and IT staff to plan more efficiently, using demand-based sales forecasts for physical, online, and multi-channel retail outlets without needing to invest in a complex infrastructure or finding data scientists. The software provides forecasts based on world-class algorithms and solves business users’ predictive analytics needs.

Forward Demand features an intuitive, user-friendly interface that delivers comprehensive forecast and sales data. This SaaS solution easily integrates into any existing infrastructure, across standard protocols and data formats, without the need for any extra investment. In short, the solution provides all the benefits of the cloud. These factors allow for integration within organisations’ IT landscapes, so existing interfaces can be used instantly. External data sources can be included easily due to Blue Yonder central SaaS platform approach.

Natsu Foods, a German-based supplier of sushi, wraps, and sandwiches, is one of the first clients using Forward Demand for sales planning. Natsu delivers its products to more than 2,500 supermarkets, guaranteeing high-quality ingredients and utmost freshness. Natsu insists on keeping food write-offs to an absolute minimum and to continue reducing its food waste – a huge challenge given the perishable nature of its goods. In order to achieve this, precise demand forecasting is critical to the company’s success.

A leading German delicatessen, Delikant Feinkost GmbH, is also set to use Blue Yonder’s Forward Demand. The company supplies sandwich fillings to a variety of retailers, from wholesalers to local corner shops, and will use the solution for granular, sales-demand planning in order to avoid running out of stock and reduce write-offs.

“Reliable sales forecasts are critical to businesses, particularly in the retail sector. Our new Forward Demand software provides significantly better, more precise and more relevant sales forecasts, increasing the quality of forecast results by up to 20 to 40 percent,” stated Uwe Weiss, CEO of Blue Yonder. “When engineering the product we had the end user in mind, specifically thinking of those who deal with Big Data on a day-to-day basis. Therefore, Forward Demand is very user-friendly, easy to implement, transparent, robust, and reliable. It eliminates the need for time-consuming tasks, such as collecting history data in Excel files, and frees up end users to do more productive work. Forward Demand demonstrates its full power with products for which sales heavily depend on the season, the price or campaigns, and we are very proud to present our latest Predictive Analytics SaaS solution to the market.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Blue Yonder .