
Conquering Chaos: How AI-Powered Demand Forecasting is Helping CPGs Balance Inventories in 2024
In the fast-paced CPG landscape, you never stop hustling. Between product launches, seasonal promotions, and shifting customer tastes, driving growth and keeping up with demand can feel like a game of whack-a-mole. Brands are juggling decisions worth hundreds of thousands of dollars every day. One wrong move with your inventory can substantially affect your financials.
Many brands are learning how to partner with artificial intelligence to give them superpowers. Despite initial doubts about the value of artificial intelligence, many brands are now partnering with intelligent forecasting platforms to gain strategic advantages.
Take a look at 3 difficulties many CPGs face and see if you recognize any of these for your brand:
CPG Struggle #1: Achieving Accurate Demand Projections
Traditional methods such as using spreadsheets can’t handle and analyze the extensive volumes of historical sales data needed to recognize evolving customer preferences.
- Visualizing demand across customers, DC, and SKU. Spreadsheets make it incredibly challenging to go back and understand historical performance, how you are doing vs your forecast, and if any adjustments need to be made
- AI-powered forecasting can easily extract insights from massive datasets, revealing patterns that human analysts might miss.
- Spreadsheets require hours to update, and it usually happens monthly. Automated adjustments on your projections can lead to optimized inventory levels that prevent stock-outs or overages, thus helping improve cash flow.
CPG Struggle #2: Enabling Cross-Functional Collaboration
CPG companies often struggle with silos between sales, production, and finance teams, making it challenging to see the whole picture. Without a shared view of demand data, channel profitability, and pipeline cohesive planning is difficult. This leads to inefficient planning, wasted resources, and mistakes that can cripple brands
New tools can help CPG companies break down silos to make more informed decisions. These tools bring together data, so everyone can view the same information instantly. Collaborative technologies provide organizations with one consistent source for reliable demand data. By integrating CRM, POS, and supply chain feeds, production, pricing, and inventory decisions across the entire value chain are streamlined.
CPG Struggle #3: Gain Visibility into Inventory Performance
Keeping track of inventory is difficult, especially when it takes a long time to make and ship products. Without accurate forecasting, you might order too much or too little stock, which can hurt your profits.
AI inventory management solutions continuously refine production recommendations based on live integrations with sales. This keeps warehouses stocked to customer needs at optimized stocking levels.
These show how technology and automating areas in your company’s workflow across different industries are effective in streamlining your processes further.
BUT, HOW RELIABLE IS INTEGRATING THESE TECHNOLOGIES INTO YOUR DEMAND FORECASTING AND STRATEGY PLANNING?
AI-powered inventory control can help brands reduce errors in projections by up to 50%, according to a 2022 McKinsey & Co report. However, many brands have trouble accessing the economic data they need because it is locked behind different systems and mountains of spreadsheets.
Here’s the real game changer – advanced analytics that plugs directly into your workflow. Emerging platforms like Pantry are designed to further enhance inventory management capabilities for seamless integration into your ERP and accounting system
Built for collaboration, it visualizes shared assumptions, team performance, and enables cross-functional discussions to improve plan accuracy. It also extends projections up to 18 months into the future, arming teams with insights for proactive decision-making.
Pantry’s flexibility allows you to customize forecasting periods, revenue vs units, and understand the implications shifting sku mix may have on your business.
The beauty of Pantry lies in its collaborative nature which ensures you’re always alerted when projections deviate or metrics stray from targets. Choose which KPIs matter most like sales targets, inventory turns, or out-of-stock, making data-driven decisions anywhere, anytime, empowering you to optimize your inventory management and achieve your business goals.
Say goodbye to inventory management woes and hello to strategic growth with an AI-powered inventory platform. No more endless hours spent thrashing to keep inventory levels in check. Our intelligent demand planning system adapts to your unique business conditions, freeing you up to focus on what matters most – expanding your brand’s reach and achieving new heights. With our AI platform at your side, you’ll conquer chaos and unlock new horizons of success.
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