The FINANCIAL — Accenture (NYSE: ACN) and Blue Yonder are helping clients across retail, consumer goods and high tech industries, including Essity and Pactiv, outmaneuver uncertainty with intelligent, customer-centric supply chain transformations that capitalize on the benefits of a cloud-first approach.
Accenture research shows more than three-quarters (76%) of supply chain and operations C-suite executives agree that their company will accelerate its digital transformation, including its emphasis on using the cloud. By expanding its alliance with Blue Yonder, Accenture will expand and scale its Supply Chain & Operations practice with new capabilities and skills to meet that demand.
“Companies are under incredible pressure to reimagine and transform their supply chains to be more responsive, efficient, sustainable and resilient to enable purpose-led growth – and they’re prioritizing cloud at the core of their efforts,” said Kris Timmermans, senior managing director and Accenture’s global Supply Chain & Operations lead. “Expanding our alliance with Blue Yonder will provide our joint clients the necessary tools and visibility to actively respond to disruptions in their supply chains, while also reinforcing the cloud-first approach as a key tenet of digital supply chain transformation.”
Working together, Accenture and Blue Yonder have helped a wide range of clients around the world address the most pressing supply chain challenges with cloud-based solutions. For example:
- Accenture and Blue Yonder collaborated to help Essity, a health and personal care company in Europe and North America, set-up a central transport control tower during the COVID-19 pandemic to gain transparency and increase efficiency. As a result, Essity was able to mitigate the impact on its business due to better decision-making processes that helped the company leapfrog the competition. Transforming the supply chain helped build resilience and provided critical data and analytics in record time.
- Accenture and Blue Yonder also worked together with industry-leading food service and packaging company Pactiv to deliver true end-to-end supply chain management, from planning through fulfillment to warehouses and transportation. The system and leading-edge approach enabled Pactiv to optimize decision making across the entire supply chain, driving operational efficiencies, strong customer service, and saving tens of millions of dollars per year.
“The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for real-time supply chain visibility and the ability to proactively plan for, and instantly adapt to, changing circumstances. Together with Accenture, we will drive greater client value with proven methodologies that help companies achieve their visions for resilient supply chains by putting cloud at the center,” said Mark Morgan, executive vice president – Worldwide Commercial Business, Blue Yonder.
Accenture and Blue Yonder will continue to offer advanced supply chain expertise and solutions across the value chain from planning to logistics; providing end-to-end visibility, while also fast-tracking existing client journeys to a more cost-effective and agile cloud architecture. Building on its deep expertise in cloud services, Accenture recently announced the creation of Accenture Cloud First, a new multi-service group of 70,000 cloud professionals, with a $3 billion investment over three years.
Leveraging Accenture’s deep industry and technology experience and its global network of Innovation Hubs, the companies will also jointly develop innovative fit-for-purpose supply chain offerings that leverage Blue Yonder’s cloud-based LuminateTM platform, which runs on Microsoft Azure Cloud. The companies’ combined strength in artificial intelligence and machine learning will enable the creation of new solutions that help joint clients achieve network-wide visibility and collaboration, automated execution, improved demand and supply planning, optimized inventory management, and enhanced fulfillment.
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