Consumer goods network event: Big data and demand planning

On February 16th EyeOn hosted the first event at JADS (Jheronimus Academy of Data Science). JADS is the collaborative alliance of the TU/e and Tilburg University, the Dutch city of ’s-Hertogenbosch and the province of North Brabant on education, research, and innovation in the field of data science.

Together with participants from several consumer goods companies like A.S. Watson, Bose, FrieslandCampina, GrandVision, Jacobs Douwe Egberts, Logitech, Panasonic, Sennheiser and Unilever we discussed the ongoing developments around the use of big data in demand planning processes.

 

We kicked off by EyeOn consultant Edward Versteijnen briefly explaining the developments of big data and discussing the trends of the use big data in the marketing and demand planning departments. Moreover, the barriers to start using big data in demand planning were discussed.

Guest speaker Sander van den Broek (Optiply) explained how his company is helping online web shops to optimize inventory levels by using more than only using traditional data sources. Moreover, he gave his vision on how big data will change the way planning processes will be managed in the future.

EyeOn managing partner Freek Aertsen took the participants on the journey on how to start using big data in forecasting and demand sensing and shaping activities by showing how EyeOn improved the demand planning process of an international headphone company. Currently the participating companies are building and centralizing their analytical skills and are most often collecting point-of-sales data to improve their demand planning.

Finally guest speaker Pieter van Geel (Blue Mango Interactive) explained which demand shaping activities from a marketing perspective can be used to increase forecast accuracy by changing demand.

The discussions we had throughout the day were very fruitful and it was interesting that it was a transparent session in which all companies were open to share their experiences of using big data in their planning processes. We thank all network members for their contributions to a successful and inspiring network meeting and are looking forward to meet you on one of our upcoming events.

If there are questions, don’t hesitate to contact us!

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