Powered by ToolsGroup Software, Granarolo Wins Dual Awards for Successful Promotion Forecasting and Supply Chain Planning

MILAN and BOSTON, Sept. 8, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Using ToolsGroup software for successful promotion forecasting and supply chain planning, Granarolo recently earned supply chain awards from two well-known industry publications: SupplyChainBrain and Supply & Demand Chain Executive.  Granarolo is one of Europe's largest dairy producers with € 1 billion in revenue and more than 2000 employees.

Dairy industry supply chain planning is particularly difficult because products have short shelf lives and demand varies greatly in response to promotions. Granarolo manages thousands of promotions per year and peak demand can run up to 30 times baseline demand. Excess inventory and delivery times leads to high costs and waste; empty shelves lead to disappointed customers and wasted money on promotions.

In its "Great Supply Chain Partners" issue, SupplyChainBrain featured Granarolo for having overcome difficult forecasting challenges through ToolsGroup's innovative machine-learning solution. According to the case study, "The new technology could learn the correlation between all of the variables that affect increased sales driven by a promotion, including advertising, flyers, coupons and other tactics…"  

SupplyChainBrain received nominations for hundreds of solutions providers in every aspect of supply chain management during a six-month on-line poll in which supply chain professionals were asked to nominate vendors and service providers whose solutions have made a significant impact on their company's efficiency, customer service and overall supply chain performance.

Supply & Demand Chain Executive (SDCE) celebrated Granarolo as one of its "100 Great Supply Chain Projects"  for successfully improving "forecast reliability to 85 percent, with a peak of about 95 percent for milk and cream," and reducing inventory levels "by more than 50 percent, cutting capital and lead time in half." Criteria for selection included ambitiousness of the project, creative application of technologies and business results.

"We are immensely proud of Granarolo's success and to be recognized alongside them in these 'people's choice'-style awards. They are further evidence that our 'Powerfully Simple' approach to supply chain planning helps customers the world over make substantial business improvements," said Joseph Shamir, CEO of ToolsGroup.

About SupplyChainBrain (www.supplychainbrain.com)
SupplyChainBrain, the world's most comprehensive supply chain management information resource, is accessed year round through a wide range of ever evolving multi-media formats by hundreds of thousands of senior level industry executives. In addition to addressing the fundamental principles of supply-chain management, SupplyChainBrain identifies emerging trends, technologies and best practices, forward thinking ideas and cutting-edge solutions ~ and continues to write and report about these as they evolve and mature.

About Supply and Demand Chain Executive
Supply & Demand Chain Executive is the executive's user manual for successful supply and demand chain transformation, utilizing hard-hitting analysis, viewpoints and unbiased case studies to steer executives and supply management professionals through the complicated, yet critical, world of supply and demand chain enablement to gain competitive advantage. On the Web: www.SDCExec.com.

About ToolsGroup
ToolsGroup is a global provider of "Powerfully Simple" supply chain planning and demand analytics software. Our customers overcome volatile demand and challenging supply chains to generate accurate forecasts and outstanding customer service levels with less global inventory. Reliable behind-the-screen technology and scalable statistical models enable highly intelligent data-driven decision making, combined with ease of use. ToolsGroup's solutions span key supply chain planning areas such as Demand Forecasting and Collaboration, S&OP, Demand Sensing, Promotion Forecasting and Multi-Echelon Inventory Optimization.

SOURCE ToolsGroup