#1 The Rise of Composable Commerce Architecture

Retail and supply chain planning have long been dominated by large ERP incumbents and monolithic one-size-fits-all legacy systems; the growth of RELEX into a market leader demonstrates that the industry is embracing change. More and more, we see retailers and brands favoring a composable commerce architecture that allows them to integrate dedicated solutions via API, creating customized, highly efficient tech stacks tailored to their organizations’ specific needs. This movement is giving rise to a number of innovative dedicated vendors that are effectively creating new categories. For example, RELEX excels in forecasting & replenishment, price & promotion, and space & assortment planning; OneStock in order management, and Akeneo in product experience management (PXM).

Composable commerce architecture reduces vendor lock-in and risk, allowing organizations to continuously evolve and improve their digital ecosystems to help drive operational efficiency, enhance customer experience, and economically scale as their business expands. The MACH Alliance, which advocates for API-first, cloud-native, and headless technologies, exemplifies this movement, promoting modular solutions that empower businesses to detach from legacy tools and freely choose the best technologies available.

#2 Waste Reduction in the Supply Chain

Structural waste is a pervasive problem across today’s retail supply chains, where having the right product available at the right time is crucial but can easily lead to overstocking and financial losses. This challenge is felt acutely in the food supply chain as the limited shelf life for fresh foods creates an additional layer of complexity. An estimated 33 to 40 percent of the world’s food is lost or wasted every year. We strongly believe there is a clear need for technologies that enable better alignment between supply chain, retail operations and actual consumer demand.

RELEX has long tackled this challenge head-on with its AI-based, unified platform, which is designed to allow retailers and brands to more accurately optimize their forecasting and replenishment workflows. Taking a real-time, automated, data-driven approach, RELEX offers customers the ability to effectively respond to sudden changes in customer demand or temporary supply chain disruptions, while helping to ensure optimal inventory levels. RELEX reports that their grocery customers have consistently seen a reduction in food waste from 10% to 40% annually after they switch to RELEX.

#3 The Amazon Effect

Amazon has redefined the retail landscape, setting high standards for product availability, cost efficiency and rapid shipping. To meet these elevated customer expectations, retailers and brands are working hard to transform their supply chains, leveraging innovative retail technologies to improve their fulfillment, procurement and optimization processes. RELEX offers advanced demand forecasting, inventory optimization, and replenishment capabilities that help retailers predict customer needs accurately and ensure products are available when and where they are needed. By providing leading-edge forecasting and fulfillment capabilities, RELEX empowers their customers to respond swiftly and efficiently to changes in demand and product availability. We believe this technological edge is crucial for maintaining competitiveness in a fast-paced omnichannel landscape.