RELEX Mobile Pro Simplifies Stock and Fresh Item Replenishment Process

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RELEX Solutions, a provider of unified supply chain and retail solutions, recently introduced RELEX Mobile Pro, an advanced AI-driven in-store execution application for retailers, suppliers, wholesalers, and manufacturers. RELEX Mobile Pro is the ideal solution for retailers looking to consolidate their many in-store tools and processes. It empowers store colleagues with an easy and accurate store ordering and tasking offering, with a particular focus on managing the complexities of the fresh business. RELEX Mobile Pro not only improves store efficiency but also helps retailers maximize sales and profitability while minimizing waste and spoilage.

Over 40% of grocery retail sales came from fresh departments last year, making it critical to ensure the fresh department is always in stock and exceptionally fresh. By combining the RELEX Mobile Pro solution with the proven AI-driven machine learning capabilities of RELEX, customers can overcome typical fresh-specific challenges, including poor inventory visibility, product availability, and product presentation to the consumer. By combining targeted, exception-based workflows with science-based recommendations, the RELEX offering can boost store personnel engagement, ensure product availability, and optimize customer service.

“RELEX Mobile Pro is purpose-built to optimize in-store ordering while also providing an all-inclusive task management offering. This enables the automation of manual tasks and boosts efficiency, so store personnel can shift their focus to high-value tasks,” said Tom Charlton, Vice President of Product, Forecasting & Replenishment, RELEX Solutions. “This new offering has been created to help our customers create a significant step-change with their in-store processes, creating competitive differentiation while also leveraging best-in-class data science to ensure the right products are where they need to be, every time.”

RELEX Mobile Pro, combined with the RELEX fresh item replenishment capabilities, uses AI/ML to address challenges like understanding store inventory levels, customer purchasing patterns for date-sensitive products, and prioritizing tasks to provide a better customer experience. It also helps optimize stock management by ensuring products are stocked correctly, reducing spoilage and out-of-stocks, boosting sales, and improving store labor efficiency.

RELEX Mobile Pro offers a range of key capabilities to streamline inventory management and enhance operational efficiency. Users can easily review and amend orders, leveraging suggested replenishment amounts and making modifications based on stock counting updates. The solution also allows for ad-hoc order creation to address unexpected ordering needs on the fly. With item scanning and search functionalities, users can instantly access product-specific data while in-store.

Additionally, the RELEX unified offering enables users to intuitively check stock balances, conduct counts, and make necessary updates. With alerting features, users receive focused alerts for specific value-added actions, enhancing proactive decision-making and operational responsiveness.

Company sees 42% subscription revenue growth in 2023 and the end of the year realizing the 66th quarter of consecutive ARR growth

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RELEX Closes 2023 with Record Customer Growth

RELEX Solutions announced closing 2023 with remarkable growth across annual recurring revenue (ARR), customer net promoter score (NPS) satisfaction, and new customer signings. Overall, RELEX saw 42% year-over-year growth of reported subscription revenue in 2023, and in Q4 2023 realized its 66th quarter of consecutive ARR growth. This growth is attributed to new and expanded customer signings across the globe, as a variety of retailers and consumer goods companies recognize the deep value inherent in the company’s supply chain and retail planning solutions. RELEX delivers quick time to value, and has a flawless track record of successful implementations in the company’s decade-plus history.

“The bedrock of our customer promise lies in delivering measurable, impactful results, very quickly. We stand by the premise of ‘doing what we say we’re going to do’ which not only instills trust, but confidence,” said Mikko Kärkkäinen, group CEO and co-founder, RELEX Solutions. “I’m very proud of our growth this year, which is directly attributed to the lasting relationships we form with customers from day one.”

In 2023, RELEX closed nearly 200 customer deals, of which 73 were net-new customers. Some of the new customers RELEX signed in 2023 included A.F. Blakemore & Son, bp, Casey’s, Fressnapf, Koala Furniture, Obramax, OXXO, PriceSmart, United Natural Foods, US Foods® CHEF’STORE™ and 7-Eleven Australia. RELEX also saw a 31% increase in customers that chose to expand their business with RELEX to capture additional business value in 2023, which speaks to the measurable results and value customers gain working with RELEX, as evidenced by a company-high NPS rating of 61 globally. The average NPS score for a SaaS company is 41; RELEX consistently scores well above the industry average each quarter.

With the recent acquisition of Optimity, RELEX also welcomes 80+ customers across highly complex manufacturing and food and beverage industries including Blendwell, Bubbies Ice Cream, Vita Coco, and Finsbury. These customers join the roster of consumer goods companies at RELEX including Altia, Angulas Aguinaga, Atria, Hennig-Olsen, Maag Group, and Saarioinen, among others. Across retail, wholesale distribution, and manufacturing, RELEX currently has a portfolio of over 500 happy customers.

Prince Retail Group partners with RELEX Solutions to automate inventory management and drive expansion

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Prince Retail Group recently announced its collaboration with market-leading supply chain and retail planning firm RELEX Solutions to automate demand forecasting for its 70+ supermarket stores nationwide. The technological investment by the homegrown retail chain strengthens its position to strategically expand its reach in remote areas across the Philippines.

Prince Retail and RELEX established the partnership in 2020, when COVID-19 peaked, and access to essentials was crucial. However, access to retail channels in rural communities in the Philippines has always been challenging due to regional infrastructure hurdles. Prince Retail’s mission is to close this accessibility gap. The pandemic's emphasis on the problem only pushed the retailer’s commitment to finding the means to reach and serve more marginalized people.

At the time, Prince Retail was also burdened with persistent supply chain challenges, which, if not resolved, posed a severe threat to the business’s financial viability. Demand forecasting was an entirely manual process, leaving teams with significant risks for error when internal variables and local developments such as lockdowns, shortages of raw materials, or adverse weather conditions occurred. Maintaining a steady and accurate inventory flow and optimizing operational costs in preparation for expansion was taxing, as almost every Prince Retail store was about 100 kilometers from the nearest port.

Implementing the RELEX unified retail planning solution enabled Prince Retail to maximize their resources and streamline operational costs and processes while improving service levels for even the most far-flung stores. The retailer’s forecasting and allocation teams can easily input and view inventory information on a single platform, including intricacies and constraints unique to a specific vendor or store. The result significantly reduces discrepancies brought by disparate, manual forecasting methods.

The platform, powered by artificial intelligence (AI), automates the complex and time-consuming decisions of calculating forecasts based on user data and harnesses machine learning to optimize predictions.

"Automating our demand forecasting helped us increase our availability by at least 10%, enabling us to flourish and deliver a better customer experience despite the uncertainties brought by the pandemic," shared Rina Janine Go, Chief Merchandising, Marketing, and Distribution Officer at Prince Retail Group of Companies. "The use of AI greatly supported us to improve our decision-making with data-driven insights that ultimately catalyzed our growth and enabled us to serve our customers better than ever before. It helped us seamlessly expand, even with an online channel and other initiatives to reach more customers who were struggling with where to buy their essential necessities.”

In 2021, the corporate group’s subsidiary Prince Hypermart partnered with the B2B application, “My Suki”, to launch an e-commerce app to cater to the growing number of digital customers, particularly the large base of resellers who source their goods from Prince. The unified tool for demand forecasting allowed the retailer to seamlessly integrate inventory for both online and offline channels in real time.

Prince Retail, which prides itself on being one of the organizations that quickly pivoted to digital when the pandemic happened, advocates digital transformation for other homegrown businesses due to its positive impact on stakeholders. "Agile digital transformation helped us to streamline our forecasting, better serve our existing customers, and even reach more of the market through our online shopping app—all contributing to the increased confidence and trust in our retail stores.”.

"I believe it’s also equally important to recognize that investing in technological tools that enable us to move away from manual operations increases the digital skills of Filipino workers, which are essential to being future-ready," Go added.

Stefano Scandelli, Senior Vice President EMEA and APAC at RELEX Solutions, said, "The collaboration with Prince Retail is a great opportunity to show how Filipino companies can take advantage of automation and AI to realize further growth. We are committed to helping more local retailers digitally transform their supply chains to remain relevant in today’s digital economy.”

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About RELEX Solutions

RELEX Solutions helps retailers and consumer brands drive profitable growth across all sales and distribution channels by maximizing customer satisfaction and minimizing operative costs. Our market-leading, unified supply chain and retail planning platform helps retailers and consumer goods companies align and optimize demand, merchandise, supply chain, and operations planning across the end-to-end value chain. We drive record-high product availability, increased sales, improved sustainability, and the best return on investment in inventory, space, workforce, and capacity Leading brands like Dollar Tree and Family Dollar, Coles, Siam Makro, Pharmacity, Delivery Hero, and Prince Retail trust RELEX to optimize their supply chain and retail planning.

Go to relexsolutions.com for more information.

Leveraging Artificial Intelligence to Manage the Effects of Global Supply Chain Disruptions

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As the Philippines continue to experience high inflation, recording 8.6% in February 2023, Filipinos are expected to adjust their budgets and prioritize essential goods and services. While this poses an opportunity for grocery retailers to increase sales, the ongoing global supply chain disruptions have also made it difficult to keep inventory high and prices low.

According to the World Economic Forum, the invasion of Ukraine is a primary cause of much of the energy and food price inflation in many countries and is fueling a global food crisis. Extreme weather also continues to disrupt the global supply chain by impacting major shipping routes and crop yields. In the Philippines, storms in the 2021-22 crop year caused sugar shortages, resulting in skyrocketing price increases from Php 54.5 to Php 89.5 per kilo for refined sugar.

As inflation is expected to remain high in 2023, economists anticipate a recession in major economies, which will certainly affect the developing world. It is also likely this will have a significant impact on grocery retailers. Fortunately, machine learning and AI (artificial intelligence) technology, like the technology used by global supply chain leader RELEX Solutions, is able to provide insights to diminish disruptions to business operations.

Automated demand forecasting reduces operational costs

Amid rising costs of goods and services, Filipinos are becoming more price sensitive, seeking sales and markdowns and assessing which shops or channels offer the most competitive prices. Following recent gas price hikes, many online delivery platforms increased their fees resulting in changes to customer shopping patterns, who are now opting for in-store shopping. With more foot traffic expected in groceries and supermarkets, keeping a high inventory at a low price becomes essential.

In order to adapt quickly to these and other changes, retailers should leverage automation and artificial intelligence-driven insights to cut down operational costs and lower the cost of goods and services. AI helps predict the impact of demand drivers such as promotions, prices, product displays, and weather data to accurately forecast demand and optimize replenishment. For retail operations, this means that they can better allocate their manpower and avoid losses.

AI allows more efficient inventory management for omnichannel

While retailers are expected to have an increase in foot traffic, online channels will continue to be prevalent due to the convenience and savings they offer through digital promotions. According to a report by Meta and Bain & Company, the Filipino digital consumer population is the second largest in Southeast Asia at 69 million and is expected to continue growing its gross merchandise value by 20% by 2027.

With the increased demand for omnichannel, retailers should focus on removing silos within their e-commerce and brick-and-mortar businesses and start managing both as a single, unified business. This transformation is a laborious task that requires accurate, real-time reporting to adequately manage customer expectations, making it essential for retail brands to integrate solutions powered by AI. The right tools ensure fulfillment of online orders from stores, customer backorders, and online orders are correctly accounted for in forecasting and inventory planning, even as products are redirected from one fulfillment center to another.

AI enables a better customer experience

When retailers are out of stock, they’re losing sales and possibly customers. The efficiency of a retailer’s replenishment operation is critical to maintaining customer satisfaction and business profitability. However, a recent study by RELEX Solutions found that close to 50% of retailers don’t know how much stock they have in each store, revealing a gap in the strategic approach to accurate and effective store ordering among these companies.

To stay on the consumers’ radar, retailers need to prioritize efficient replenishment systems that address customer needs without burdening resources. With consumers being able to shop anytime and anywhere, AI and machine learning technology help brands keep the right amount of inventory, forecast changes in demand, and adjust replenishment orders, driving improvements to service, sales, and customer satisfaction.

“The evolution of artificial intelligence in retail is very timely due to the need for businesses to save up money as current economic conditions push customers and partners to minimize expenses,” said Kristie Davison, Vice President for APAC at RELEX Solutions. “AI helps retailers eliminate excess costs and manage their cash flow for better business sustainability.”

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About RELEX Solutions

RELEX Solutions helps retailers and consumer brands drive profitable growth across all sales and distribution channels by maximizing customer satisfaction and minimizing operative costs. Our market-leading, unified supply chain and retail planning platform helps retailers and consumer goods companies align and optimize demand, merchandise, supply chain, and operations planning across the end-to-end value chain. We drive record-high product availability, increased sales, improved sustainability, and the best return on investment in inventory, space, workforce, and capacity. Leading brands like Dollar Tree and Family Dollar, Stokke, Rite Aid, Sprouts Farmers Market, AutoZone, and PetSmart trust RELEX to optimize their supply chain and retail planning.

Go to relexsolutions.com for more information

On Pricing & Promos: The Common Challenges of a Filipino Retailer

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How can promotions drive profitability across distribution channels during the holiday rush?

A recent study by the World Remit found that Filipinos spend 100% of their salary on gifts for family and friends during the holiday season — creating sales opportunities for retailers recovering from the pandemic or starting new ventures. As consumers increasingly become more comfortable going to shopping malls, shop owners need to use strategic in-store and online promotions to effectively cut through the noise and catch customer attention.

RELEX Solutions, a global leader in supply chain and retail planning, breaks down retailers’ most common promotions questions and shares a few tips to generate sales during the holiday season.

Question #1: How can I test the effectiveness of my promotion?

Filipinos enjoy indulging during the holidays, but the Philippines is a very price-sensitive market when it comes to consumer goods., This makes it crucial to identify proper price points for products sold. In fact, recent research from IPSOS shows that Filipinos are even more concerned about rising commodity prices than the effects of the pandemic. These concerns put pressure on local retailers to continue to run promotions and keep their prices low to attract more customers and increase sales.

But how does one test the effectiveness of these promotions?

A good place to start is running an A/B test. Retailers can set up experiments across select stores and timeframes to collect data that will be used in analyzing the potential sales impact. Another more challenging solution involves building detailed models that compare baseline and promotional demand for each item and store. Brands can then observe alternative scenarios and measure the effects of running or not running a specific promotion. In turn, consumers can decide on purchases based on their budget, which translates to sales for brands. Regardless of the approach, what remains crucial is the ability to calibrate terms as needed.

Question #2: How can I convert first-time customers into loyal customers?

Consumers are exposed to endless promotions as the holiday shopping season comes into full swing. Alongside competitor brands, promos within the same brand also divide a customer’s attention. This results in low sales uplift that is often barely enough to compensate for the price reductions, eventually leading to a loss.

Retailers must ensure their omnichannel promotions complement each other to hit maximum profitability with minimal strain on resources — all while delivering the best experience for customers. Data analysis from past promotions can also be studied to understand which practices should already be stopped or started. This includes assessments on price, tactics, and other features that could generate the best results.

Question 3: How do I know if I’m running too many promotions?

Only data can tell. When products with weak promo potential are advertised too often, it can threaten profits and margins. Insights from previous promotions help, but there are also several factors that could make manual analysis tricky. Such factors include sales comparisons across the different seasons of the year, as well as the frequencies of discounts given during the pandemic.

Retailers need to keep a rapid pace to contend with their competitors, so running complex, cumbersome manual experiments can be a waste of valuable time and resources. This is why digitization has played a crucial role in trying to optimize sales and promotions for retailers.

“Promotions, as tough as they are, play a considerable role in increasing sales and store traffic,” shared Kristie Davison, Vice President of Sales for APAC at RELEX Solutions. “That’s why retailers need to embrace promotions despite the competition and market challenges. While the strategies listed above will help, integrating a dedicated promotions tool will unlock even more potential and provide a wealth of insight and analysis to position relevance and engage customers seamlessly.”

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About RELEX Solutions

RELEX Solutions helps retailers and consumer brands drive profitable growth across all sales and distribution channels by maximising customer satisfaction and minimising operative costs. Our market-leading, unified supply chain and retail planning platform helps retailers and consumer goods companies align and optimise demand, merchandise, supply chain, and operations planning across the end-to-end value chain. We drive record-high product availability, increased sales, improved sustainability, and the best return on investment in inventory, space, workforce, and capacity. Leading brands like Dollar Tree and Family Dollar, Stokke, Rite Aid, Sprouts Farmers Market, AutoZone, and PetSmart trust RELEX to optimise their supply chain and retail planning.

Go to relexsolutions.com for more information

How retailers can beat inflation with automated demand forecasting and replenishment this Christmas

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MANILA, PHILIPPINES – Christmas season is always a business growth opportunity for many retailers due to a sure spike in consumer spending. In fact, Filipinos were found to spend 331% of their monthly income during the holidays in 2021. Yet, a successful season for many retailers this year is threatened by the continuing impact of COVID-19 on the supply chain, along with the current economic challenges such as soaring inflation, increasing price of petroleum products, and weakening consumer confidence.

“Similar to retailers globally, Filipino businesses also grapple with the increased supply chain challenges from both the pandemic and the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia. What’s more, consumers are equally experiencing the brunt of this situation, making the climate harsher for many enterprises,” shared Kristie Davison, Vice President Sales Asia Pacific at RELEX Solutions. “The most efficient way for retailers to navigate these uncertainties would be to plan how to maximize sales while minimizing loss.”

Seasonal inventory management is often difficult due to advanced purchasing before the season and a high risk of the residual post-season stock. Christmas, in particular, means that there’s a high turnover of product lines from one season to the next. Think about how a lot of smartphones are sold during the holidays but the selection is always different per year. Furthermore, brands also often launch new products that are systematically pushed throughout the -ber months as seen in 11.11 and 12.12 promotions, requiring retailers to assess demand for each. These situations highlight how crucial demand forecasting is in order to get the right amount of stock-keeping units (SKUs) and ensure a return on investment. Unfortunately, many retailers manually forecast demand, posing high risks of inaccuracy that can lead to over- or understocking.

Automating demand forecasting helps businesses achieve optimal outcomes by improving the on-shelf availability of seasonal products and reducing residual stocks when the season ends. A good forecasting model for seasonal planning includes a reference product that can be specified against seasonal or event-specific indices to calculate data-backed forecasts for new items. Empowering businesses to search the historical assortment for items with similarities to those being introduced and build a forecast can potentially drive significant improvements to availability and inventory values while considerably reducing markdowns.

With Christmas spanning four months in the Philippines, smart replenishment also contributes to improving a brand’s responsiveness to consumer demands. A good solution is to deliver only a part of the forecast demand to stores at the beginning of the season to avoid moving goods among shops. Once holiday shopping starts, SKUs at individual stores can be replenished through pull control that is based on the latest sales, store-specific forecasts, and actual inventory. This enables retailers to effectively respond to local conditions with respect to external factors such as weather or a change in competition for an individual store. When products are bought in advance, push control should be used toward the end of the season to ensure that seasonal products don’t pile up unnoticed in the central warehouse. An ideal management system allows allocations to be directed to the stores with the best chances of selling the products such as those with the highest sales and no excess inventory.

“It is important to remember that a model of operations is not necessarily the best one simply because it has been used for years,” added Davison. “Digitizing seasonal inventory management helps retailers make seasonal sales sustainable, achieve better results, and prepare well for such events.”

RELEX Solutions is a market-leading supply chain & retail planning platform that helps retailers and consumer brands unify their planning, from demand and merchandise to supply chain and operations, for maximum customer satisfaction at the lowest operating cost.

 

 

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About RELEX Solutions

RELEX Solutions helps retailers and consumer brands drive profitable growth across all sales and distribution channels by maximising customer satisfaction and minimising operative costs. Our market-leading, unified supply chain and retail planning platform helps retailers and consumer goods companies align and optimise demand, merchandise, supply chain, and operations planning across the end-to-end value chain. We drive record-high product availability, increased sales, improved sustainability, and the best return on investment in inventory, space, workforce, and capacity. Leading brands like Dollar Tree and Family Dollar, Stokke, Rite Aid, Sprouts Farmers Market, AutoZone, and PetSmart trust RELEX to optimise their supply chain and retail planning.

Go to relexsolutions.com for more information