What Grocers Can Do to Respond to Amazon

Digital Supply Chain: The New Arena of the Grocery War

Foodservice, Retail

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Glenn Taylor at RetailTouchPoints has an interesting article that provides some insight into what the Amazon-Whole Foods deal means for grocery.

Like retailers in any other sector, grocers are going to have to learn from Amazon’s customer-first mentality to keep up with the competition, whether through:

  • More flexible payment options;
  • More flexible shipping options;
  • Differentiated, private label product offerings;
  • Taking control of/digitizing their own supply chain; and
  • Prioritizing the growth of their e-Commerce offering.
There are no best-in-class grocers or retailers that don't have a best-in-class supply chain and fulfillment operations... Click To Tweet

Key Competitive Arena: The Digital Supply Chain®

In order to go toe-to-toe with Amazon in grocery, retailers will have to improve their supply chains significantly. The Digital Supply Chain® is a key to being customer-centric and responsive to consumer demand, and to improving efficiency.

Today’s retailers are going to have to ramp up their supply chain capabilities with digital innovation to reduce costs, according to Bernard Goor, VP and Industry Evangelist at supply chain solution provider One Network Enterprises, which enables Digital Supply Chains® through its AI-driven Digital Supply Chain Network™.

“There has been no best-in-class grocer or retailer that doesn’t have a best-in-class supply chain and fulfillment operation,” said Goor in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “Grocers have to leverage technology to share high-fidelity information across all the parties in your B2B world, in order to make optimized decisions in real-time. All of those partners have to be on a common network.”

Goor recommends that retailers “shorten” their supply chains by using:

  • A single version of consumer demand that converts to an order forecast;
  • True engagement of all parties within the network as a single place of business; and
  • Artificial intelligence technology to streamline planning and execution stages within the same timeframe.

Read full article: Amazon-Whole Foods Deal Intensifies Grocery War

I also recommend Bernard Goor’s article Top 10 Lessons Learned from GMA Supply Chain Conference

Nigel Duckworth
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