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Covéa Insurance Plc, the UK underwriting business of leading French mutual insurance group Covéa, serves two million policyholders and generated over £725.7 million in premiums in 2020. The company is facing a significant challenge in the form of insurance fraud, which is costing the industry over £1bn a year. One of the most complex and hard-to-detect types of fraud they face is Ghost broking. This is when a policy is purchased by a middle person for a customer using false or stolen information to reduce the premiums. In the event of a claim, these policies would be legal and Covéa would have to pay out. As Covéa is mainly an underwriter, they often do not deal with the policy holder directly, so they had less data to work with to detect fraud. The call handling team were doing manual searches and checks on over two million new quotes per day. The scale was far too much to deal with in an efficient timeframe.

GroundLink, a global provider of ground travel services, was seeking ways to enhance the customer experience and improve the features and functionality of its mobile application. The company wanted to gain a deeper understanding of user behavior within the app to make informed decisions about development strategy. The challenge was to find a solution that could provide detailed analytics and insights into user behavior, enabling GroundLink to detect shifts in user experience and adjust their strategy accordingly.

JoyTunes is an innovative company that uses gamification and audio technology to revolutionize the way people learn and practice music. The company wanted to better understand their users, eliminate usability issues within the app, and increase user retention and in-app conversions. They were looking for a solution that could provide them with real insights into their users' in-app behavior and help them measure, understand, and improve the user experience.

In 2020, NetApp was seeking a tool to streamline the input, review, and reporting of forecast calls at both the individual and team level. The company wanted an AI solution to enhance customer engagement and foster the internal training and growth of their sales reps. The challenges faced included a lack of insights into customer conversations, over-reliance on spreadsheets, ad-hoc deal reviews, ineffective CRM use leading to poor customer engagement, and no AI in the training of sales teams.

In 2018, Honeywell embarked on a strategic initiative to implement a global design model (GDM) for its CRM solution. This initiative was a result of a high-level blueprint of recommendations, which were gathered from over a hundred Honeywell employees across various functions. The next step for Honeywell was to find a suitable sales forecasting tool. The goal was to improve sales forecast accuracy across business units, enable informed decision-making, and predict short and long-term performance. However, Honeywell faced several challenges. These included disconnected CRM instances maintained across business units, low accuracy in predicting short and long-term deals and opportunity performance, lack of real-time deal insights, and overspending on underutilized CRM licenses and ineffective call recording tools.

Ivanti, a software company, was facing several challenges with its sales business processes. The company had multiple disconnected instances of Salesforce CRM, which made it difficult to streamline its operations. The manual forecast rollup with MS Excel and PowerPoint was time-consuming and inefficient. The data was scattered across CRM and Excel spreadsheets, making it hard to get a comprehensive view of the business. The company also lacked insights into opportunities and activities, and had complex hierarchy requirements. These challenges were hindering Ivanti's growth and efficiency.

Massdiscounters, one of the largest value retailers in South Africa, is expanding its presence in sub-Saharan Africa, including Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, and Mozambique. As part of its aggressive corporate growth strategy, Massdiscounters recognized the need to re-evaluate its best-of-breed technology strategy. The company has recently added food to its merchandise array, leading to increased market share but also adding to the complexity of Massdiscounters’ supply chain model. To support this move, Massdiscounters has invested heavily in new physical infrastructure, including three large distribution centers. The company decided to move from a best-of-breed to a best-of-suite strategy, selecting JDA’s demand management, replenishment, and promotions optimization solutions.

Butterball, a leading producer of turkey products, faced significant supply chain challenges due to the seasonal and promotion-driven nature of many of its products, as well as the fact that every product is date-sensitive. The company needed to forecast at a very high level of accuracy, as well as improve its date-sensitive inventory management. Meeting retailers’ different service-level expectations and product freshness requirements added a layer of planning complexity to Butterball’s supply chain that if not managed well could lead to a risk of obsolescent inventory and unhappy customers.

Sysco, a global leader in food product distribution, was seeking a way to train new users and refresh experienced users on key topics in a fast and flexible manner. The company wanted to prepare new staff for certification courses in advance and improve knowledge of solution features for better results. Sysco operates in a complex environment, purchasing, storing, and delivering products from the frozen, refrigerated, and ambient environment from/to more than 161 warehouses across the U.S. and Canada. The company services the most remote areas in North America, making training a challenging task.

NFT, a leading provider of time-sensitive, chilled food and drink logistics services in the UK, was facing operational challenges that were preventing it from optimizing performance. The company's traditional pick-face approach was leading to underutilization of its 220,000 square-foot warehouse, immense SKU proliferation, and almost unmanageable replenishments and put-backs. Additionally, the way manufacturers produced their products was creating issues with sell-by dates and misrotation, leading to waste, extra administrative burden, fines, claims, penalties, returns, and rejections. NFT wanted to protect its business reputation, preserve customer sales, and improve performance.

Pepsi-Cola & National Brands Ltd., an independent retail distributor and bottler of Pepsi-Cola and Dr Pepper Snapple Group brands, was facing challenges with its immense number of stock-keeping units (SKUs). Rising wages, concerns around productivity, inventory visibility, breakage, and stock rotation led the company to evaluate its systems and seek new technology. The company decided to invest in a warehouse management system (WMS) and workforce management (WFM) technology to help reduce costs, improve processes, and enhance its relationship with union employees.

Infineon Technologies operates in the semiconductor and system solutions industry, which is known for its demand volatility, long product lead times, and high capital investments. The company serves a diverse range of customers worldwide, including auto manufacturers, industrial electronics companies, chip card and security businesses, and information and communications technology leaders. The challenge for Infineon was to create a single integrated, multidimensional sales and operations planning process that promotes global collaboration and enables the company to quickly respond to market changes. The company’s ability to sense and respond to demand changes, while balancing global production capacity across its more than 20 facilities, was proving to be a significant challenge.

Lenovo, a $34 billion personal technology company, was seeking to increase the reporting accuracy and efficiency of the sales-order planned ship date functionality within JDA Factory Planner. The company wanted to automate manual processes to enhance productivity and needed on-site assistance to support their information technology (IT) department in solving key issues. Lenovo operates in more than 160 countries and is dedicated to exceptionally engineered PCs and mobile Internet devices. The company's business is built on product innovation, a highly efficient global supply chain, and strong strategic execution.

Lenovo, a global personal technology company, experienced a dramatic expansion of its global presence when it acquired IBM’s personal computing (PC) division in 2005. This acquisition set the stage for rapid organic growth, with the company's revenue increasing from US$13 billion in 2006 to US$21 billion in 2011. However, Lenovo faced a significant challenge in supporting its e-commerce initiatives for its global customer base, which spans six continents. The company's site availability was approximately 89 percent, meaning for every 100 hours, there were 11 hours in which it was unable to transact. This led to lost sales, customer satisfaction issues, and brand issues. Additionally, Lenovo needed a system that could handle unpredictable loads and scale dramatically based on seasonal events.

Fujitsu Network Communications, a provider of diverse range of products to the telecommunications and cable industries, was facing challenges in accurately forecasting demand and responding efficiently to changing customer needs. The company was using spreadsheets for all its forecasting and planning, which was a time-consuming and labor-intensive process involving around 25 people and taking about six weeks to produce a 12-month rolling forecast. This process was not providing their suppliers with the visibility they needed. Fujitsu wanted to reduce the number of people involved in the process, produce an 18-month rolling forecast every month, and improve forecast accuracy.

DSW, a leading U.S.-based footwear specialty retailer, faced a strategic challenge due to the fixed capacity of its branded locations. The stores, which average over 20,000 square feet and feature approximately 24,000 pairs of shoes and accessories, had limited backrooms to keep excess merchandise. This necessitated exacting assortment management for each market. The existing supply chain processes and technology tools only focused on the highest levels of the business and overall metrics. The planning was done in dollars at the department level, which was not sufficient for the company's needs. DSW saw an opportunity to drop down to a deeper level planning solutions and realize significant benefits.

Glazer’s Distributors, a company selling wine, spirits and malt beverages to big-box retailers, bars, restaurants and liquor stores, was experiencing rapid growth. Its total sales of $400 million in the mid-1990s would eventually reach $3.2 billion by 2010. Its inventory was also expanding to include more than 47,500 individual products, held in 29 regional distribution centers. The company could no longer rely on spreadsheet-based processes and legacy systems, and needed a more sophisticated platform to make faster and better supply chain decisions. The company needed a reliable demand-driven supply chain that focuses on customer service, supports vendor collaboration and optimizes inventory.

Shoppers Stop, India's largest department store chain, was facing challenges with its store replenishment process. The retailer was using a fixed-stock method of replenishment, which did not always ensure that the best-selling stores received new styles first. In some categories, inventory was over- or under-stocked, and stock transfers between stores added to internal supply chain pressures and costs. As the overall scale of the business grew, store replenishment was becoming more cumbersome. Shoppers Stop needed an automated, intelligent solution that would ensure that its stores receive the right amount of merchandise that will sell, and enable it to manage store replenishment by category.

Fairchild Semiconductor, a major player in the semiconductor industry, faced significant challenges following the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009. The industry experienced an unprecedented downturn, followed by a dramatic upturn in customer demand, driven by computing and mobile technologies. Fairchild Semiconductor had to deal with extremely volatile demand, a global shortage of manufacturing capacity, growing lead times, and scarce supply. The company reported first quarter 2010 sales of $378 million, up 7 percent from the prior quarter and 69 percent higher than the first quarter of 2009. To offset this increase in demand, Fairchild Semiconductor needed to increase manufacturing capacity and capabilities with minimal capital investment.

Dr Pepper Snapple Group (DPS), one of North America’s leading refreshment beverage companies, was facing a challenge in mass producing store-specific planograms on a large scale to meet the changing needs of their retail customers without draining their time and resources. The company’s goals were to improve the accuracy rate, increase efficiency, boost retail partnerships without increasing headcount and reducing excess inventory to achieve increased cash flow. The company sells its diverse and popular soft drinks to top franchise businesses like Coca-Cola, Pepsi and other independent bottling companies throughout North America. With category management a core competency, the beverage company’s space, assortment and speed-to-insight capabilities are continuously evolving.

Tnuva Food Industries Ltd., a major player in the food industry, was facing challenges in efficiently delivering its highly perishable products to the right place at the right time and in the correct quantities. The company aimed to achieve high service levels while minimizing excess inventory. The short lifespan of their products added to the complexity of the situation. The company needed a solution that could support operations in five dairies and distribution centers throughout Israel, including two of the most advanced and sophisticated logistics centers in the world.

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash memory storage solutions, needed to increase its supply chain flexibility and responsiveness to customer demand. As the company's business grew, it needed to migrate from homegrown, spreadsheet-based planning tools to robust, scalable solutions that would support its expanding original equipment manufacturer (OEM) channels and retail presence. SanDisk sought an integrated advanced planning solution that would help the company maintain profitable growth and maximize its margins while continuing to meet customer demand and increase customer satisfaction.

JFE Steel Group, a leading steel manufacturer based in Tokyo, was facing challenges in optimizing efficiency, capacity, and costs at its manufacturing facilities due to a lack of accurate sales forecast and intelligent planning software. The sales data was stored on individual sales person’s computers, making it difficult for management to collect and load the information into their planning spreadsheets. This resulted in a slow, labor-intensive process where changes to the monthly plan had to be entered manually and the long-term plan was never updated for changes. The company was in need of a solution that could provide immediate visibility to demand, including changes impacting both monthly and long-term planning.

Altera Corporation, a pioneer and leader in programmable logic solutions, serves more than 12,000 customers worldwide, with annual revenues of $1.9 billion. However, recent market changes and organizational growth over the past decade prompted Altera to reevaluate its supply chain strategy. Adapting to external changes like new government regulations and industry consolidation, as well as managing more complex products and various distribution channels, were impacting the company’s supply chain. The company recognized that change is the new norm, and therefore, it needed to be continuously evolving in order to ensure supply continuity and velocity. Altera increased external and internal forecast collaboration, and invested in business process improvement and integrated planning systems to accelerate the speed of information exchange.

Charlotte Russe, a rapidly growing retailer, operates more than 500 stores in the U.S. in addition to its online and mobile shopping platforms. The company excels in delivering a differentiated brand experience that embraces the Charlotte Girl’s on-the-go lifestyle. However, the existing system infrastructure and associated business processes were limiting the company’s ability to grow, operate quickly and efficiently, and keep pace with both its customers’ demands and the competitive environment. Prior to the upgrade, the Charlotte Russe team was spending numerous hours each day manually uploading spreadsheets across various functions, which left the team with little time to analyze or act on the data. Due to some inefficient business processes, the company also experienced delays in getting purchase orders to its vendors, a core requirement of its business.

Pharmaceutical suppliers and retailers in Denmark operate in a tremendously complex environment. Every two weeks suppliers must submit product pricing to the government without having any knowledge of how their competitors will price similar pharmaceutical products. The government then selects among bids for the lowest-priced prescription drug, which serves as the only one that it will fully reimburse for a given two-week period. After those two weeks, the process starts all over again. One company excelling in this highly competitive market is Nomeco A/S, Denmark’s largest pharmaceutical wholesaler with a 70 percent market share. Specializing in health logistics, Nomeco is an international center of excellence for the Danish pharmaceutical industry and part of the wholly owned subsidiary of the Finnish company Tamro – the largest distributor of pharmaceuticals in Northern Europe, Poland and the Baltic countries.

PEP, Southern Africa’s largest single-brand retailer, operates at the low end of the market, providing a critical service to low-income families across the southern nations of Africa. The company strives to price its clothing, footwear, and housewares as low as possible to make them attainable for consumers. This focus on low prices necessitates maximum efficiency and cost control across its supply chain. However, PEP struggled to keep its stores in stock with merchandise due to long lead times and inaccurate orders. The company's ordering calculations were not very advanced and did not take into account all of the constraints. PEP needed technology that would help it achieve more sophisticated order calculations.

Swire Beverages, the franchise bottler for all brands of The Coca-Cola Company in Hong Kong, was facing significant supply chain challenges due to the rapid growth of the Coca-Cola brand in China. The company's network of bottling production facilities was under pressure due to the use of a manual system that was reaching its breaking point. Swire needed a solution to manage the forecasted growth of its 10 bottling plants in Central, Eastern and Southern China, as well as the increasing complexity of its products and supply chain. The company was also faced with more demanding customer service levels, and its Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) center was tapped to provide planning support for a new supply chain joint venture to service all of China’s bottlers, of which Swire is a significant shareholder. The difficulty in accurate forecasting was compounded by the seasonality of the beverage industry, consumer marketing initiatives and the complexity of Swire Beverages’ nationwide network.

Office Depot France, a leading European office products reseller, operates 56 stores across France, selling more than 9,000 products. The retailer creates planograms for all of its product ranges, providing each individual store with its own set. However, with numerous physical stores and a large product range to support, the retailer previously relied on a manual Excel-based process to create and compare its planograms. This time-consuming process for analyzing and comparing planograms for different stores could take up to two hours per planogram. In addition, Office Depot France’s merchandise planning team encountered numerous data inconsistencies, as there wasn’t a link between the floor and space planning data that was being produced. As a result, it was becoming difficult for Office Depot France to conduct range reviews and make planogram changes in an efficient manner.

Merck Serono International S.A., a global pharmaceutical and biotechnology leader, faced the challenge of integrating two very different supply chains for traditional pharmaceuticals and biotechnology-based pharmaceuticals. The traditional pharmaceutical supply chain was locally driven with a pull concept, while the biotechnology supply chain was centrally managed with a push concept. During the integration, the company also had to ensure high customer-service levels that aligned with its 'no stock-out' philosophy. Additionally, Merck Serono wanted to constrain distribution with planned production orders, taking into account capacity constraints and the availability of the products' main components. To optimize business practices, the company needed improved forecasting accuracy and manufacturing planning support to drive efficiency and limit inventories to increase cash flow.