Aera Technology, the Decision Intelligence company, announced that Colgate-Palmolive Company will partner with Aera to automate complex decision making for its fast-growing Hill’s Pet Nutrition division with the goal of achieving new efficiencies and service levels.
How will Colgate-Palmolive leverage Aera’s technology?
Colgate-Palmolive will use the capabilities of Aera Decision Cloud™ to optimize product deployment decisions across its fulfillment network of Hill’s Science Diet and Hill’s Prescription Diet plants, and mixing and distribution centers. Aera’s Decision Intelligence technology, which is already live at three Hill’s plants enables dynamic stock deployment decisions.
These digital decisions consider, at a fine grained level, customer prioritization and forecasted demand and safety stock for optimal product allocation that ultimately maximizes fulfillment of demand and customer service. Using Aera Decision Cloud and its Aera Skills™ — customized, digitized decisions that provide the ability to understand, recommend, act, and learn for a set of business problems — provides customers the following capabilities:
- Enabling a single source of truth across multiple sources for forecast, demand, and safety stock data to support, digitize, and automate decision making
- Predicting best decisions for product allocation across its fulfillment network of plants and mixing and distribution centers to maximize value
- Optimizing decisions for where best to ship products by differentiating and segmenting types of demand and prioritizing customer and safety stock demand
What does this mean for Colgate-Palmolive and Aera?
Commenting on the partnership with Colgate-Palmolive, Fred Laluyaux, Chief Executive Officer of Aera Technology, said, “The high level of engagement and collaboration across the Colgate-Palmolive and Aera teams has been exciting to see. Through Colgate-Palmolive’s fast learning journey and adoption of self-service capabilities, the company has already driven early, positive results. We look forward to enabling more amazing outcomes in the future.”
“Further strengthening the service levels we provide to our customers is a top priority at Hill’s and all of our businesses. Partnering with the Aera team, we are reinventing our decision-making processes to maximize value across our Hill’s business, and we expect to expand our use of Decision Intelligence at Colgate-Palmolive,” commented Bawana Radhakrishnan, Worldwide Director, Global Supply Chain Digital Transformation, Colgate-Palmolive.
What is the wider industry context of this partnership?
Multinational corporations (MNCs) operate in multiple countries and cultures, which can create unique challenges for decision-making. These challenges include:
- Cultural diversity. MNCs must be aware of the different cultural norms and values that exist in each of the countries where they operate. This can be a challenge, as it can be difficult to understand and navigate different cultures.
- Legal and regulatory differences. The legal and regulatory environment can vary greatly from country to country. This means that MNCs must be aware of the laws and regulations that apply in each country where they operate.
- Geopolitical risks. The political and economic landscape can change rapidly, which can create risks for MNCs. For example, a change in government could lead to new laws or regulations that could affect an MNC’s business.
- Distance and time differences. MNCs often have employees and operations in different time zones. This can make it difficult to coordinate decisions and communicate effectively.
- Information asymmetry. MNCs may not have access to the same information in all countries. This can make it difficult to make informed decisions.
These challenges can make it difficult for MNCs to make effective decisions. However, there are a number of things that MNCs can do to address these challenges. These include:
- Developing a global mindset. MNCs need to develop a global mindset, which means understanding and appreciating different cultures and values.
- Building relationships with local stakeholders. MNCs need to build relationships with local stakeholders, such as government officials, business leaders, and community members. This can help them to understand the local context and to build trust.
- Using technology to their advantage. MNCs can use technology to help them to overcome the challenges of distance and time differences. For example, they can use video conferencing and other tools to communicate effectively with employees and stakeholders in different countries.
- Establishing clear decision-making processes. MNCs need to establish clear decision-making processes that take into account the different challenges that they face. These processes should be transparent and should involve input from stakeholders in all countries.
By addressing these challenges, MNCs can make better decisions that will help them to succeed in the global marketplace.
In addition to the challenges mentioned above, MNCs also face a number of other challenges, such as:
- Managing risk. MNCs are exposed to a wide range of risks, including financial, operational, and reputational risks. They need to have effective risk management processes in place to mitigate these risks.
- Compliance. MNCs must comply with a wide range of laws and regulations in the countries where they operate. They need to have a strong compliance program in place to ensure that they are in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations.
- Sustainability. MNCs are increasingly under pressure to operate in a sustainable manner. They need to develop and implement sustainable business practices that will benefit the environment and society.
The challenges of decision-making for MNCs are complex and ever-changing. However, by understanding these challenges and by taking steps to address them, MNCs can make better decisions that will help them to succeed in the global marketplace.
Gerald Ainomugisha is a business news reporter and freelance B2B marketer with over 10 years of experience in writing high-converting copy and content for businesses of all kinds, especially SaaS providers in the niches of HR, IT, fintech, eCommerce and web3. Since joining Upwork in 2012 (back when it was still eLance), Gerald A. has delivered great results for hundreds of clients, maintaining a 98% Job Success rate as well as 5+ years of Top Rated Plus rating (and Premium Writers Talent Cloud membership). Book a meeting with Gerald A. today to get the powerful SEO content you need!
