Food wholesale co-op automates vendor communication
Associated Wholesale Grocers Inc. (AWG) is launching a portal to enable integrated, seamless collaboration between its members and their vendor partners.
AWG, the nation’s largest cooperative food wholesaler to independently-owned supermarkets, which serves over 1,100 member companies and over 3,200 supermarket locations in 28 states, is partnering with data analytics provider IRI to deploy AWG Partner Gateway. Based on the IRI Liquid Data data management platform, the AWG Partner Gateway is an online portal that automates and connects the key forms that vendors use to communicate and sell to AWG.
In addition, the AWG Partner Gateway automates reporting to AWG vendor partners. As a result, the company intends to drive organizational and operational productivity, reduce overall collaborative costs, and provide standardized reports, analytics, forecasts, and automated processes based on AWG’s unified database.
The AWG Partner Gateway’s capabilities will include an enterprise-wide view, standardized category management and execution analytics, long-term demand forecasting, and automated vendor partner workflows. This portal is a key element in what AWG is calling its “Convergence” strategy, a long-term plan to operate as a $23 billion cooperative retailing organization that delivers “best-in-class” capabilities to its members and vendor partners.
The AWG Partner Gateway will roll out in multiple phases, beginning in the second quarter of 2022. The first phase will leverage AWG’s order and shipment data to provide its retailers and vendor partners with standardized data, reporting, analytics, and insights to create differentiated capabilities in assortment optimization, planning and forecasting, and workflow automation.
Later phases are planned to provide AWG members with visibility into local competitive market insights, as well as the ability to integrate POS data for competitive differentiation and further localization.
“Our members represent more than $23 billion in retail sales, making the collective cooperative the sixth largest supermarket group in the United States,” said David Smith, AWG president and CEO. “Our mission is to provide our member-retailers all of the products, tools and services they need to compete favorably in all markets served. With IRI’s expertise, data access and advanced technology, AWG is empowering our members and vendor partners to leverage data and analytics as strategic differentiators for improved growth and profitability and to further achieve our mission.”
“IRI is thrilled to be bringing a highly customized solution – rooted in advanced technology and our unparalleled data access – to the important independent retailer and wholesaler markets in partnership with AWG,” said Wei Lin Wong, president of global retail and strategy, IRI. “The AWG Partner Gateway creates a best-in-class program to help AWG provide their vendor partners and members with accurate, real-time, and actionable insights driven by the most representative wholesale distributor data available.”
Mr. Christmas, a designer of holiday decorations that sells merchandise via an e-commerce site as well as through third-party retail partners, is also electronically streamlining vendor communications. The company adopted the TrueCommerce EDI integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. TrueCommerce manages the onboarding process for new Mr. Christmas trading partners, as well as the ongoing management of trading partner-specific mapping and labeling changes.
By integrating sales, purchasing, inventory, and fulfillment interactions with supply chain participants connected through the TrueCommerce Commerce Network, Mr. Christmas intends to gain real-time supply chain visibility for improved efficiency, resilience, and customer service.