News Briefs

Fashion brand Karl Lagerfeld is automating allocation across its network, tapping artificial intelligence to streamline inventory management.

The company is working with supply chain planning software ToolsGroup to improve customer satisfaction, elevate sell-through potential, and increase financial performance by expediting the planning process, reducing inaccuracies, and fine-tuning forecasts to ensure ideal stock placement. 

Timothy Justin Dreijer, senior vice president of retail, supply chain and operations, IT and legal affairs at Karl Lagerfeld, said the company was looking to implement a solution that would prepare it for its current and future business growth goals. 

“The fact that these solutions are backed by services teams who explain technical concepts in easily digestible ways and communicate openly and clearly only bolstered our confidence in this partnership,” added Dreijer.

“Today’s supply chains have the potential to be differentiators in the market. Innovative retailers understand that realizing this potential depends on powerfully simple AI solutions that enable optimal decisions at the speed of business,” said ToolsGroup CEO, Inna Kuznetsova.  

Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP) Netherlands hopes to avoid out-of-stocks and overstocks with a new investment in assortment optimization. 

The bottling company, which serves 600 million consumers and has 1.75 million customers across 29 countries, has tapped SymphonyAI Retail CPG’s technology to improve supply chain efficiencies and better align its assortments with shopper behavior. The technology is designed to enable CCEP to rationalize SKUs based on existing data on aggregated customer preferences while protecting shopper privacy.

• See also: Hormel Foods Beefs Up Retail & Supply Chain Real-Time Data Sharing to Improve OSA

It enables the company to prioritize customer engagement at the point of sale and leverage data science to improve the bottom line, according to Job Rombout, head of category management, CCEP Netherlands. 

“In the pilot phase, we saw powerful initial results from the science," he said in a statement, "and we are excited to now bring measurable business impact in a real-world environment with a strategic retail customer.”

While retailer partnerships are undoubtedly valuable for consumer goods companies looking to get closer to the consumer, that value is often difficult to measure, particularly across social channels in regards to marketing investment. PepsiCo is one CPG company that is currently bridging that data gap. 

PepsiCo is an early partner of a new SaaS solution called Ansa, provided by Meta Platforms, Inc. and powered by IRI. The technology allows companies to access brand- and product-level sales results for shopper marketing campaigns. 

• Read also: PepsiCo Building Out Pepviz Data Science Practice

According to Stephani Pegler, e-commerce marketing director at PepsiCo, measuring the impact of incremental omnichannel sales for retailer-specific social media investments has been a longstanding challenge across the industry. 

Through the new technology, however, PepsiCo can tap into proprietary analytics support across SKU-levels and retailer-specific campaigns. Among the capabilities are automated targeting, optimization, and measurement for store-level sales for campaigns launched on Facebook and Instagram.

“The measurement partnership between Meta and IRI enables PepsiCo to understand how its retailer-specific Meta campaigns drive omnichannel sales,” said Pegler in a statement. “This is critically important for informing how to most effectively plan and optimize Meta buys as part of our media mix.”

Additional functionality includes hyper-local targeting recommendations and optimization based on customizable campaign parameters. The technology also leverages control testing to determine sales lift from the campaign.

“Nearly two-thirds of CPG and retailer shopper marketers utilize Instagram and Facebook to drive category and brand sales,'' said Jennifer Pelino, executive vice president, Global Media Solutions for IRI. “Ansa will enable marketers to reach shoppers on Meta’s platforms in a data-enabled way that is more cost-effective, flexible and scalable than ever before. It will allow them to reach the right people at the right time in their shopper journey, and make it easier for them to buy online and in stores.”

Veeral Shah has been named chief e-commerce and digital officer for Nestlé USA, a new role for the company. 

Shah shared the news in a LinkedIn post and indicated in a message to CGT that the move aligns with the company’s previously announced plans to further invest in its e-commerce and consumer data capabilities.   

As part of its strategy, Nestlé intends to grow e-commerce to represent a quarter of its total sales, double its consumer data records, and leverage predictive analytics to improve consumer lifetime value and identify innovation opportunities.   

Most recently VP of commercial strategy and development at Nestlé, Shah has also held roles at Campbell Soup Company, Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg’s, and Accenture.  

“I have always aspired to have a voice on a C-suite level executive leadership team and to achieve this at the world's largest CPG company is truly humbling,” Shah posted on LinkedIn. “Since joining Nestlé four years ago, I have been blown away by the culture, leadership, and people I get to work with everyday. With this newly created position, Nestlé once again confirms its commitment to stay ahead of the curve in the e-commerce and digital space.” 

• See also: How Nestlé Gets Close to the Voice of the Consumer

Mondelēz International is investing in its cybersecurity and digital workplace services. 

The No. 17 publicly owned consumer goods company has teamed with HCL Technologies as part of a multi-year contract. To support its hybrid workplace model, Mondelēz leveraged HCLTech’s BigFix platform to automate the discovery and remediation of potential vulnerabilities. This is designed to ensure all endpoints are continuously secured and compliant.

Automation and artificial intelligence are expected to provide an intuitive, on-demand personalized user experience and accelerated issue resolution to Mondelez’s 110,000-plus employees across 79 countries. 

Punit Jain, CTO AMEA, global digital workplace lead at Mondelēz International, said the partnership will enable the food company to leverage the power of intelligence automation to drive growth and enhance the employee experience. 

"The world of work continues to change, so delivering a great employee experience is vital,” Jain noted. “Having productive and happy employees means we continue to delight our customers. Therefore, we must proactively maintain and manage our digital workplace environment.”

Tyson Foods has named Coca-Cola’s chief marketing officer, Melanie Boulden, as their new EVP and chief growth officer. Boulden will take up the role starting February 6, 2023. 

With this new appointment, Boulden will oversee Tyson’s complete global marketing strategy and execution process, with a particular focus on accelerating growth across the company’s portfolio of brands. This will include all aspects of consumer and corporate branding, R&D, marketing and communications, and customer analytics.

[Related: Tyson Shifts to Programmatic Approach to Tackle Production Challenges] 

Boulden has over 20 years of experience in the consumer and packaged goods marketing space, having most recently worked as Coca-Cola North America’s chief marketing officer, handling a portfolio which also included Sprite, Smartwater, and Minute Maid.

Prior to this, Boulden worked as Coca-Cola’s president of the still beverages business unit. Boulden also served at Reebok – working as the sporting brand’s global head of marketing and brand management – as well as in a variety of marketing positions at Crayola, Kraft Foods and Henkel Consumer Goods.

Commenting on the news, Boulden said: “As Tyson Foods continues on its strong growth trajectory as a global food leader, I am pleased to be in a role where I will help drive the long-term growth of the company's broad portfolio of products and iconic brands.”