At this week’s NRF Big Show in New York, SAS showed through a private preview on Microsoft Azure how it can help retailers and consumer goods manufacturers anticipate shopper needs and shipping disruptions more effectively.

With the global supply chain crisis still raging, the need for agile, accurate demand planning has never been greater. SAS Cloud for Intelligent Planning software-as-a-service is available now and is part of the Microsoft Cloud for Retail launch, helping businesses build resilient supply chains.

Brian Kilcourse, managing partner at Retail Systems Research, said the pandemic had pushed retailers and consumer goods companies to their limit in terms of anticipating demand.

“There’s still massive pressure,” Kilcourse said. “And SAS helps relieve that pressure. SAS’s collaboration with Microsoft gives companies needed agility in a use-as-needed delivery model. Now, with the benefits of the industry cloud, retailers will get access to more timely data, increasing supply chain transparency.”

SAS Cloud for Intelligent Planning helps users use artificial intelligence (AI) to create self-tuning plans to make sure the right products are in the right place at the right time. This means they can stay ahead of consumers with short-term demand sensing that turns consumer insight into action.

The SaaS lets them balance and scale commercial goals across every department in an organisation, and visualise a forecast in any way on any device – spreadsheets, reports, dashboards, tablets and smartphones.

The SAS offering predicts forward-looking demand signals – when, where and how sales will happen. By using shopper data, the software recommends balanced, profitable commercial plans across a retailer’s channels and customers. Automated with machine learning, the cloud offering is always up to date to help users remain on top of their business.

Richard Widdowson, SAS vice president, said SAS could help a retailer realise as much as a five per cent revenue improvement because of its agile, short-term forecasting capabilities.

“When put into practical terms, that means better on-shelf availability and a maximum return on investment for your inventory dollars,” Widdowson said. “The solution on Azure will help boost shelf performance by up to 50% and reduce the time it takes to complete a forecast faster than ever before.”

Shelley Bransten, corporate vice president at Microsoft, added: “Microsoft Cloud for Retail partners provide more integrated solutions to reduce risk across the ecosystem, identify opportunities and decrease time to market to better serve our customers. Partners such as SAS can drive innovation, extending and enabling the value of the platform to address the most pressing challenges retailers face today.”