ToolsGroup’s Intelligent Demand Sensing and New Resources Get Companies ‘Ready for Anything’ in a Decade of Unparalleled Market Risk

ToolsGroup, a global leader in supply chain planning software, today announced new demand sensing resources to help companies ready their supply chains for the unparalleled risk that analysts predict for this decade. Along with intelligent, AI-driven demand sensing software tools, ToolsGroup has launched new educational resources including the ebook “Why You Should be Using Demand Sensing to React Faster to Market Changes.” 

Today’s supply chains already battle complexities like product line proliferation, shortening product life cycles, hyper-seasonality and fickle customers. Widely predicted events for this decade including a credit-fueled global recession and radically changing consumption habits will further escalate demand variability. Gaining rapid insights into demand data helps you anticipate and react quickly to shifts in demand due to new product introductions, internet-fueled trends, or economic and health events such as Brexit and coronavirus. You’ll be able to act while competitors run out of stock, and when an item doesn’t sell as expected, you can act quickly to adjust production and inventory to avoid over-stocking.

A hybrid approach for robust forecasting

ToolsGroup software supports a hybrid demand sensing approach that applies multiple forecasting techniques and data types. The latter should include historical sell-in data; downstream sell-out data, such as point-of-sale; and finally external data such as weather and economic indicators. The result is a robust probability forecast that recommends a range of possible demand outcomes, and also which is most likely. This allows planners to calculate production, inventory and customer service levels with a high degree of confidence and in time to avoid stockouts or obsolescence.

Demand sensing at TireHub

Tire distributor TireHub had grappled with SKU proliferation and seasonality and partnered with ToolsGroup to implement an innovative demand and supply systems solution to support its rapid growth. TireHub will incorporate local point-of-sale data into its demand sensing model, enhanced with machine learning. Today TireHub not only plans for predictable demand fluctuations (snow tire sales peaking in winter) but also the complexities of local demand by factoring how many of the different car models are sold locally and regionally. TireHub has fully automated much of its replenishment planning, improved business outcomes and built capacity to serve 70,000 points of delivery in just 18 months. Crucially, it is much better prepared to respond to whatever changes in local demand occur in the future.

ToolsGroup CEO Joseph Shamir commented, “In our increasingly interconnected economy, it’s not just businesses, but entire supply chains that have to be able to react optimally to whatever market conditions occur. Without the tools and processes to continually sense and analyze demand signals, the bullwhip effect kicks in and leads to stock-outs, obsolescence, waste and, in the worst cases, business failure.” 

Demand sensing resources:

• Download the ebook “Why You Should be Using Demand Sensing to React Faster to Market Changes”

• Download the ebook “Three Essential Capabilities of Supply Chains that Are ‘Ready for Anything’”

• Book a demand planning & sensing demo with a ToolsGroup solution expert

About ToolsGroup

ToolsGroup is how organizations improve product availability while right-sizing inventory, no matter how complex their supply chain is or how much demand changes. In a world that rarely follows the rules, our retail and supply chain planning suite optimizes and automates supply chains from production to purchase, enabling manufacturers, distributors and retailers to be ready for anything. That’s why global leaders like Absolut, BP and Harley-Davidson rely on us year after year. For more information, follow ToolsGroup on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, or visit www.toolsgroup.com.