Heineken is one of the industry’s highest-profile beer brands, with a global network of breweries, cider plants, and other production facilities in more than 70 countries along with over 90,000 employees.
But even with all that corporate muscle, the Amsterdam-based corporation struggles with the same planning challenges that other consumer goods companies face—like fluctuations in demand caused by inflation, supply chain disruptions, evolving consumer habits, and a growing demand for more sustainable products and processes.
To help hone its demand planning and forecasting capabilities, Heineken decided to take the high-tech route. The brewer recently announced plans to implement software developer Blue Yonder’s Cognitive Demand Planning, a cloud-native, microservices-based SaaS (software as a service) solution that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to improve forecast accuracy.
Once the Blue Yonder Cognitive Demand Planning solution is implemented, the company expects to be able to make more informed, data-driven decisions; manage complexity and boost forecast accuracy; compress the planning cycle and respond faster to changes; and create and deploy customized and extended solutions.
Check back with this space soon, and we’ll see if the outcome is just froth or a cool, refreshing stream of valuable, up-to-the-minute data.
