Leading supply chain solutions company helps retailers, logistics service providers and manufacturers end year strong with insights into what Q4 will hold and enhancements to AI-powered forecasting, management and modeling solutions
DALLAS: Blue Yonder Holding, Inc. (Blue Yonder), the leader in digital supply chain transformation, today released its Q3 2024 company highlights, as well as its insights into the industry trends that matter most heading into Q4 2024.
Quarterly Company Highlights
In Q3 2024, Blue Yonder continued to showcase its end-to-end strength in the market by:
- Adding 31 new customer logos in Q3 2024. New customers who selected Blue Yonder or existing customers who extended their footprint during the quarter include:
- Americas: BJ's Wholesale Club, CONA Services LLC, Crate & Barrel Holdings, Inc., PepsiCo LATAM, RealCold, Sheetz, SRC Logistics, Unilever Brazil, US Aid
- APAC/EMEA: Bunnings, CE.DI. GROS, Kmart Australia Limited, Knauf, Sainsbury’s
- Completed the acquisition of One Network Enterprises. The acquisition gives Blue Yonder customers the ability to collaborate and share data – from inventory levels to raw and finished goods materials movement – in real time across all trading partners up and down the supply chain. With the addition of One Network’s commercial technology, Blue Yonder can now offer customers a multi-enterprise, multi-tier network ecosystem; artificial intelligence (AI)-powered supply chain assistants to identify, monitor, analyze, and resolve problems; and a simplified process to onboard and work with trading partners.
- Launching several new product features and enhancements. In September 2024, the company brought to market an array of updates designed to provide customers with cutting-edge solutions and services to optimize their supply chain operations, improve efficiency, and drive sustainable growth. Updated features include:
- Enhanced operational efficiency and decision-making across the supply chain. In the omni-channel space, Blue Yonder introduced key enhancements:
- Intelligent Rebalancer is a new capability that provides swift, automatic order execution adjustments in response to supply and demand disruptions. It is designed to quickly ingest new information and, in near real-time, reallocate inventory and fulfillment processes. The capability can adjust order execution based on current data rather than planned needs, as well as prioritize and sequence orders based on configurable rules for each customer.
- Fulfillment Sourcing Simulator is an add-on SKU to Blue Yonder Commits Service that serves as a digital twin for fulfillment sourcing decision-making. It allows users to simulate order fulfillment scenarios, with and without capacity constraints, by providing precise inventory timelines across the network. The tool enables configuration of rules based on business objectives and helps users understand trade-offs between competing objectives, allowing simulators to apply new rules in real time and test multiple “what-if” scenarios against historical data. Key features include situation room team collaboration tools, KPI roll-up and drill-down capabilities, continuous feedback integration with commerce suite, and a secure digital twin environment for experimentation.
- Improved operational performance and flexibility. In the warehouse management space, Blue Yonder introduced new capabilities that strengthen logistics operations:
- Blue Yonder Warehouse Tasking is a cloud-native solution that incorporates near real-time information (like due dates, resource capabilities and inventory locations) to intelligently optimize warehouse work and orchestrate tasks based on available resources. A newly added feature reflects the unique access limitations of very narrow aisles, allowing customers with very narrow aisle (VNA) trucks to utilize Warehouse Tasking assignment functionality to determine the optimal task to present VNA operators that request directed work.
- Blue Yonder Yard Management is a computer-vision-based solution that uses cameras, object recognition and machine learning (ML) to automate gate-check activities. It helps logistics service providers (LSPs), manufacturers, and retailers automate, monitor and centralize yard operations to increase throughput, reduce lost loads and decrease fees. Thanks to a new enhancement, customers can link transportation equipment with shipment information in warehouse management during gate arrival and departure. The in-the-moment connection of Yard Management with Warehouse Management data automatically updates each system and provides flexibility to enable unique workflows, eliminate work hours, and accelerate inbound delivery performance and outbound service levels.
- Enhanced demand forecasting and planner productivity. Blue Yonder Cognitive Demand Planning intelligently combines extensible ML and statistical techniques to radically re-shape the foundational process of demand planning. This approach generates high-accuracy, high-quality, mix-and-match forecasts that improve planner productivity and reduce supply chain costs. The solution features two new enhancements:
- The reconcile service simplifies data management and maintenance by enabling planners to maintain values and measures at higher aggregate levels (like product group or product family) and inherit this data to products at lower aggregate levels. In addition, planners can disaggregate demand plans with ease to different granularity levels for use in downstream functions (like production and transportation) without loss of fidelity or plan quality.
- Planners can now support partial-week demand planning using a newly implemented ML capability that breaks down time series forecasts for full weeks that span two months. The user interface also supports viewing and managing the forecast in this way.
- Building on its reputation as an industry leader with features in 29 technology industry analyst reports. Blue Yonder was included in publications by Berg Insight, Forrester Research, Gartner, IDC, Nucleus Research, and QKS Group, among others (see full list below).
Industry Insights
Heading into the last quarter of the year, Blue Yonder shares insights into the topics at top of mind for customers, shaped by its industry expertise:
- Food inflation continues to be a challenge for consumers and grocery retailers. Proteins (beef, poultry, eggs, etc.) and fresh produce prices continue to rise, which has consumers focused on value when choosing retailers and brands. Grocery retailers continue to be concerned about flattening sales and profitability as consumers continue to buy based on value. Supply chain costs (input, transportation and inefficiencies) are driving a good portion of grocery’s higher costs/lower margins, so grocery retailers should look for solutions that can help them better manage inventory and shelf placement.
- Traceability will inform new strategies. Sourcing transparency has been on the minds of consumers, and it is making its way to grocery retailers. With the Food Safety Modernization Act set to take effect in January 2026, grocery retailers must now find ways to address both the impacts of consumer-driven demand and upcoming government mandates. Similarly, regulations in the EU are driving adoption of digital passports within many product categories. Both mandates point toward a need for network visibility and n-tier traceability. U.S. grocery retailers should look to their counterparts across the globe, especially in EMEA, to see what strategies are working best.
- Labor and peak season challenges look different than previous years. Economic conditions including fluctuating costs, high demand for truck drivers and increased shipping volumes are significantly impacting labor planning and training. To account for this, LSPs are looking to optimize SKUs closer to end-line customers and cross-train employees across brand and customer specifics more so than in prior years.
- Reshoring and nearshoring are impacting logistics operations. To account for the reshoring and nearshoring happening from Asia to North America, many LSPs are looking to move fulfillment and distribution centers into Mexico and South America. This is happening with high-value goods and consumer packaged goods as companies attempt to optimize their business mixes in pursuit of agile, hybrid strategies that enable quicker responses to market conditions and move them closer to U.S. demand markets.
- Manufacturers are looking to generative AI tools to improve supply chain insights. Continued disruption across manufacturing supply chains stemming from ongoing geopolitical uncertainty and climate-related events coupled with softer demand globally is leading manufacturers to watch their supply chain operations more closely. This can be seen in the Automotive space with the slowdown in demand for vehicles and in the emergence of higher competition in the CPG space. Manufacturers are eager to learn more about generative AI tools that can help generate meaningful, tactical insights and provide them with opportunities to drive efficiency, improve customer service, and manage costs.
- Supply chain networks play a big role in manufacturing success. Manufacturers are increasingly coming to the realization that their supply chain-related competitive differentiation comes from not just their own enterprise, but from a collection of trading partners – suppliers, outsourced manufacturers, and carriers – that form their multi-enterprise network. In a global supply chain, success amid constant disruptions hinges on manufacturers’ ability to build efficient, reliable and agile multi-enterprise networks with trading partners collaborating on what’s happening upstream and downstream across their operations.
“As consumer paths to purchase become more varied and multi-channel, leading to supply chain complexity, and supply chains become more global and interconnected, end-to-end visibility has never been more important,” said Duncan Angove, CEO, Blue Yonder. “Consumers are adept at moving across a complex mix of touchpoints and technologies throughout their shopping journeys, and companies — whether they’re LSPs, retailers, manufacturers, or any other link in the chain — must develop the same level of agility within their increasingly connected operations. As we head into the home stretch of 2024, supply chain leaders can rest assured that Blue Yonder is poised to help their companies use the right technology to meet their business and financial goals.”
Customer Highlights:
Learn how Blue Yonder’s customers are persisting during times of disruption to digitally transform their supply chains and reimagine the consumer experience:
More From Blue Yonder:
- Blue Yonder was honored with several awards and recognitions in Q3 2024:
- Blue Yonder’s 2024 Consumer Retail Returns Survey looked at how consumers in the U.S. and EMEA are experiencing and reacting to increasingly stringent returns policies. Of those surveyed, 91% of U.S. respondents and 61% of those in EMEA (UK, France and Germany) acknowledge that a lenient returns policy influences their buying decision. Glean more insights from the U.S. survey here and the EMEA survey here.
- Technology industry analyst recognitions in Q3 2024:
- Gartner
- Market Guide for Retail Assortment Management Applications: Short Life Cycle Products
- Voice of the Customer for Transportation Management Systems
- Market Guide for Workforce Management Applications
- Critical Capabilities for Warehouse Management Systems
- Market Share Analysis: Supply Chain Management Software, Worldwide, 2023
- Market Guide for Retail Assortment Management Applications: Long Life Cycle Products
- Cool Vendors in Logistics and Robotics Technology
- Maximize the Value of AI in Supply Chains With “Whole Product” Use Cases
- Market Guide for Retail Workforce Management Applications
- Supply Chain Top 25 for 2024: Industrial Manufacturing
- Hype Cycle for Retail Technologies, 2024
- Supply Chain Top 25 for 2024: Consumer Products
- Hype Cycle for Digital Commerce, 2024
- IDC
- Blue Yonder ICON: Engineering-Centric Strategy with Unified Supply Chain Vision
- Market Analysis Perspective: Worldwide Warehouse Management Systems, 2024
- Market Glance: Retail Last Mile, 3Q24
- Market Analysis Perspective: Worldwide Transportation and Logistics, 2024
- Market Analysis Perspective: Worldwide Supply Chain Planning, 2024
- Marketscape: Worldwide Professional Services Providers for Retailers 2024 Vendor Assessment
- Industry Alliances and Tech Innovations: Highlights from Shoptalk Europe 2024
- Japan IT Spending Forecast by Vertical Segment, Company Employee Size, and Company Revenue Forecast, 2024–2028
- Japan 3rd Platform Forecast by Vertical Segment and Company Size, 2024–2028
- Nucleus
- Forrester
- The Order Management Systems Landscape, Q3 2024
- Key Steps to Develop Your Manufacturing Operations Management Vision
- Berg
- Insight Real Time Transportation Visibility Platforms – 1st Edition
- Insight Transport Management Systems Market – 3rd Edition
- QKS Group
- SPARK Matrix – Warehouse Management System, 2024
About Blue Yonder
Blue Yonder is the world leader in digital supply chain transformation. Retailers, manufacturers and logistics service providers worldwide rely on Blue Yonder to optimize and accelerate their supply chain from planning through fulfillment, delivery, and returns. Blue Yonder’s AI-driven supply chain platform and multi-enterprise, multi-tier network enable more accurate forecasting and dynamic management of capacity, inventory and transport. Blue Yonder helps businesses navigate modern supply chain complexity and volatility with more resilient, sustainable supply chains to delight customers, scale profitably, and run flawlessly. blueyonder.com
“Blue Yonder” is a trademark or registered trademark of Blue Yonder Group, Inc. Any trade, product or service name referenced in this document using the name “Blue Yonder” is a trademark and/or property of Blue Yonder Group, Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks of the companies with which they are associated.
Fonte: Business Wire