NEW YORK, Jan. 13, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today at
the National Retail Federation's 2020 Big Show,
IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced that enhanced solution
capabilities are being developed in collaboration with other
providers for the IBM Sterling™ Supply Chain platform to help
quickly solve returns, omnichannel and logistics challenges to
improve customer experience.
Salesforce, Publicis Sapient, IBM Services, project44 and Flooid
are developing solutions to help accelerate retailers' digital
transformation initiatives at scale using the recently launched,
open Sterling supply chain platform. 84 percent of consumers note
the importance of a quick, frictionless shopping experience
according to the 'Consumer 2020' study by IBM Institute for
Business Value (IBV) in collaboration with the National Retail
Federation (NRF). The expected improvement to front and back office
omnichannel connectivity, optimizing and orchestrating returns, can
help drive greater logistics insights and fulfillment enablement,
to help retailers remove needless friction and anticipate increased
customer engagement and profitability.
"The retail industry is poised for a renaissance as companies
move away from siloed and legacy applications towards scalable,
enterprise-tuned platforms that can holistically address
customer-facing and supply chain operations
challenges," Jeanette Barlow, VP, Offering Management and
Strategy, IBM Sterling. "This shift is likely compounding the
industry's need to quickly innovate across traditional functional
domains and deliver new capabilities that span operations and
even third party supply chain partners. To create the seamless
and personalized experience customers expect and provide a true
first-mover advantage, companies should modernize supply chains on
top of open platforms that can harness technologies such as AI,
blockchain, IoT, and hybrid cloud. Our relationships in this space
can help our clients to make this shift more quickly."
IBM Services and Bluewolf – an IBM company – is
developing a Connector with the support of MuleSoft that will
integrate the IBM Sterling Supply Chain Suite with Salesforce
Commerce Cloud, Service Cloud and Marketing Cloud. The
enterprise-grade, platform-to-platform integration can help
retailers deliver consistent and personalized shopping moments by
blending the online and offline shopping experience. "By
integrating with IBM Sterling through the MuleSoft Connector,
retailers can deliver omnichannel customer experiences to help
reduce operational costs," said Neeracha Taychakhoonavudh, EVP
Industry Go-To-Market, Salesforce. "Salesforce is excited to
collaborate with IBM to help enable a scalable, efficient,
profitable and trusted way to unify digital and physical store
operations."
Publicis Sapient – the digital transformation hub of
Publicis Groupe is now extending their relationship with IBM
piloting the IBM Sterling Developer Hub with support and
resources provided by the new 'Powered by IBM Sterling' program.
Having built a skilled order management practice, Publicis Sapient
plans to bring additional supply chain solutions to the market
using the IBM Sterling Supply Chain platform. One of the innovation
areas for the relationship is in returns optimization. Publicis
Sapient plans to extend IBM Sterling AI capabilities for returns
with a control tower blueprint and practice. The solution is being
designed to help retailers simplify consumer returns orchestration,
while bringing products into available-to-promise inventory at the
desired location. "The complexities of the retail industry are
fundamentally driving a shift towards being able to quickly tailor
solutions specific to the enterprise's unique supply chain," said
Chris Davey, Chief Strategist,
Publicis Sapient. "Being able to incorporate third-party
applications and data into innovative supply chain capabilities
provides our clients with a potential competitive advantage, while
bolstering our supply chain practice's capabilities."
project44, via their Advanced Visibility
Platform TM, helps the world's leading retailers,
manufacturers, and distributors transform the customer experience
and automate inefficiencies across the entire supply chain.
project44 plans to integrate its extensive and fast-growing global
carrier network with the IBM Sterling Supply Chain Suite, to help
clients obtain more accurate shipment ETAs, identify vital up and
down stream impacts to their inventory and orders, and quickly
respond to relevant supply chain events. "This relationship between
project44 and IBM Sterling Supply Chain Insights combines the most
precise transportation data and AI to unlock the value of supply
chain visibility in an entirely new way," said Will Hansmann, Chief Technology Officer,
project44. "Together, we can enable companies to take advantage of
a transparent, scalable and connected supply chain solution that
can help deliver predictive and actionable results in step with
their rapidly evolving business needs."
Working with IBM to realize the retail store of the future,
Flooid – a global provider of resilient basket functionality – now
offers a seamless omnichannel experience across store and online
sales channels. The Flooid platform, which was recently
rebranded from PCMS, enables retailers to transact across channels
and devices, such as registers, kiosks, self-scanners, mobile
devices and ecommerce, helping them innovate and differentiate
their customer shopping experience. "IBM Sterling and
Flooid have a long history of collaboration and highly
complementary offerings to help retail clients create a single
platform for customer experience and order fulfillment
inside the store. This can empower store associates to
provide customers with the services and choices they
want," said Tony Houldsworth, Global
CEO, Flooid. "Flooid's highly specialized platform provides a
seamless connection to the basket, which is a key component of
successful store and digital transformation."
About IBM Sterling Supply Chain
IBM Sterling Supply Chain solutions empower IT and supply chain
professionals with greater visibility, transparency and trust to
proactively predict and mitigate disruption, improve B2B
information flow, and optimize inventory utilization and
fulfillment. Learn how our AI- and blockchain-enabled solutions
help you build an intelligent, self-correcting supply chain
at www.ibm.com/supply-chain.
Media Contacts:
Erik Mason
External Communications - IBM Sterling Supply Chain
erik.mason@ibm.com
508-208-6617
Lowell Eschen
IBM Media Relations
Lowell.eschen@ibm.com
303-913-2569
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SOURCE IBM