Complete Growth Overview on CPG Demand Planning Software Industry

Customer Demand Planning (CDP) is a business planning process that sales teams can use to develop demand forecasts as input for service planning processes, production, inventory planning, and sales planning. CDP is one aspect of value chain management. In general, CDP's first step is to predict product demand. A manager can plan the allocation of resources based on the resulting forecasts. It's a bottom-up approach versus top-down planning. Risks associated with this method are: poor forecasting accuracy and the number of planners required. There are various software systems that can be used to forecast demand and plan operations. To test the added value of implementing a bottom-up approach, applications provide simulation capabilities to estimate the resulting accuracy of the demand forecast (e.g. POS sales, sales invoices, shipments, etc.).

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Some of the key players of CPG Demand Planning Software Industry:

Antuit, Inc., Board, Demand Management, Inc., Dynasys SAS, Exceedra, Fractal Analytics Inc., Kinaxis, Symphony RetailAI, Unioncrate, Vanguard Software Corporation

In the manufacturer-to-retailer model, customer collaborations have become more common since the 1990s. Although CPFR (Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment) has received industry support, manufacturers and retailers use different versions of collaborative forecasting and replenishment strategies. These include collaborative VMI, CPFR, account-based forecasting, CMI, shared individual forecasting and replenishment, etc.

The challenges and complexities of the retailer are somewhat different from the challenges of the suppliers (manufacturers and distributors). Demand management technology for the retailer is slightly different from that of the brand or manufacturer on the supply side. The planning of customer demand aims to adapt the planning logic for the customer offer and to imply a collaboration of the type CPFR. Demand management components include customer experience, demand generation, inventory and price optimization, channel management, procurement, transportation optimization, and advanced technology practices.