IBM and SAP team up to offer consumer goods and retail AI solutions

Industry giant IBM is today announcing a collaboration with ERP specialist SAP to develop solutions to help clients in the consumer packaged goods and retail industries enhance their supply chain, finance operations, sales and services using generative AI.

This involves embedding IBM's watsonx enterprise-ready AI and data platform and AI assistants, into SAP solutions to create new generative and traditional AI solutions focused on addressing the complexities of the direct store delivery business process and product portfolio management.

"Global and regional consumer industry organizations must manage various commerce applications and need advanced insights to provide proactive recommendations that help improve operations and meet customer expectations," says Luq Niazi, global managing partner, Industries and Global Consumer Industry at IBM Consulting. "With SAP, we are looking to build on the long-standing work of incorporating AI into SAP solutions that can help enterprise clients achieve further business value."

Plans include feeding external data such as weather, traffic and local events into the SAP Direct Distribution solution and apply AI to help CPG companies identify optimal store delivery routes with the aim of helping to reduce costs and their carbon footprints. Real-time updates could provide drivers with information to make on-the-fly changes based on local conditions.

At an individual store level the goal is for the solutions to be able to make specific product recommendations and include preliminary planning -- based on prior sales patterns, anticipated demand and current product mix -- so enough products are added to the assortment with the goal of maximizing sales and minimizing waste. It will also automate order settlement in order to deliver operational efficiencies.

IBM Consulting plans to build these solutions on the SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) and will integrate watsonx through APIs. Warehouse planners, frontline delivery associates and client representatives can have an enriched user experience by using watsonx Assistant to create chatbots using IBM’s conversational search capabilities.

"At SAP, we look forward to collaborating with IBM on this important initiative to help consumer goods companies transform their operations and improve their bottom line,” says EJ Kenney, senior vice president Consumer Products Industry and Life Sciences Business Unit at SAP. “We understand the complexities that come with managing direct store delivery and by leveraging the power of AI we aim to help our customers better manage their last mile distribution more effectively, minimize waste, improve customer satisfaction and achieve business value in today’s fast-paced consumer industry."

You can find out more on the IBM site.

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