Real-Time Demand Planning Precision for Consumer Goods Industries

In today's market, consumer packaged goods (CPG) and Food & Beverage supply chains face significant challenges due to global disruptions and localized issues, which reveal gaps in their transparency, responsiveness and agility. Customers are shifting to private labels and downsizing their grocery spend, causing demand fluctuations. Promotions and seasonal planning lead to imbalanced demand and supply, increased inventory levels and higher rebalancing costs. Varying shelf-life requirements further complicate CPG supply chain efficiency.

Current demand planning practices fall short due to lack of supplier visibility, disjointed systems and inaccurate forecasting tools. 

Ideal demand planning solutions should simulate market conditions in real time, incorporating internal and external factors like promotions and economic indicators. By leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), advanced demand planning solutions provide explainable forecasts, enabling planners to make data-driven decisions. Near-term demand sensing and intelligent scenario planning improve forecast accuracy, planner productivity and inventory management, aligning production with real-time shopper demand.