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Today’s consumer packaged goods (CPG) and retail industries are evolving, with brands and retailers experiencing challenges at every turn. New technologies, changing consumer behaviors, margin pressures, profitability challenges, industry convergence and new market entrants are just some of the disruptions consumer and retail industry leaders are facing. To drive long-term, sustainable growth and make transformation a reality, consumer products industry companies and retail businesses need to capture the opportunities these disruptive forces present and develop meaningful consumer journeys to future-proof their business.
Our Consumer in practice playbook series offers practical insights and actionable steps to help retail and consumer products industry leaders address a host of top-of-mind issues, navigate disruption and position themselves for both success today and growth tomorrow.
As consumer behaviors and preferences continue to evolve with lightning speed, today’s CPG and retail leaders are navigating so much change. With that in mind, we created this very practical playbook series to help guide their efforts to build enterprise value with the consumer at the center.
Kathy Gramling
EY Americas Consumer Industry Markets Leader
Issue 3
Merchandising and planning
As retailers face mounting pressures around margin, customer expectations, supply chain complexity and much more, old merchandising and planning models are no longer fit for purpose. To move beyond the costly and inefficient overstock and out-of-stock inventory scenarios that are all too common in today’s environment, retail leaders must drive more end-to-end inventory visibility and cross-functional collaboration. Taking a more holistic, data-driven approach will help achieve greater operational alignment and inventory precision, while also boosting profitability.
For more actionable guidance on how digital tools and a strategic approach can help retailers achieve inventory precision and increase profit, read the full playbook.
3 calls to action
Issue 1
Value-driven tech migrations
In today’s CPG and retail space, consumer behaviors and preferences are in a state of constant flux. To succeed, CPG companies, brands and retailers must be more intentional in leveraging tech to streamline operations, create efficiencies and provide better visibility across the business. A well-executed enterprise resource planning (ERP) system implementation or migration can help industry leaders keep pace with the market, meet consumers where they are and unlock enterprise- wide value. But amid cost pressures and other pain points, investing strategically in digital transformation and new technologies is often easier said than done.
This first playbook in our ongoing Consumer in practice series explores the business case for ERP-related investments and tech transformation with an eye toward long-term value creation.
Where retailers and brands seek to differentiate their products and services, create operational efficiencies, manage worker shortages, weather disruption from new market entrants and meet consumers where they are, generative AI (GenAI) can unlock enormous opportunity. But determining whether you’re ready and where to start the strategic GenAI journey is often easier said than done. With this new technology now sparking a major reimagining of how consumer products and retail (CP&R) companies operate, success in today’s environment will require an agile approach and a transformation mindset around the business impact and value creation potential of GenAI across functions.
This playbook offers actionable guidance for CP&R leaders who seek a strategic path forward to deploy GenAI responsibly, with a focus on enhancing efficiency, decision-making, experience and revenue.