SymphonyAI, a leader in predictive and generative enterprise AI SaaS, has announced that The Kraft Heinz Company, METRO, and K-VA-T Food Stores, the parent company of Food City, are the winners of this year’s SymphonyAI Retail CPG Tempo Awards.
The honorees are recognized for their innovation and excellence in using SymphonyAI solutions to optimize assortments, increase revenue, and improve collaboration between brands and retailers in today’s fast-changing landscape, where shopper, competitor, and market conditions are changing rapidly and continually.
Kraft Heinz in the CPG category
The Kraft Heinz Company, the third largest food and beverage company in the U.S., won for its use of customer insight solutions to inform data-driven decision making and strengthen collaboration with retailers. Kraft Heinz is committed to being a best-in-class manufacturer, delivering value to the company and its retailer customers. Kraft Heinz harnesses its scale and agility by embracing leading customer insight solutions to establish itself as a thought leader, all to provide superior service to its global customers. A compelling example of that philosophy in action is Kraft Heinz’s adoption of AI-based insights from SymphonyAI to drive strategic engagement with a Tier 1 retailer. Kraft Heinz uses customer analytics, category management, and assortment intelligence to garner significant, measurable results and meaningful growth with its retailer partner.
As results have proven the value of the collaborative data-driven approach, Kraft Heinz has become a trusted category advisor in many categories for the retailer. Chris Conroy, head of field category leadership for Kraft Heinz, noted the power of this close collaboration between Kraft Heinz, SymphonyAI, and the retailer, and the increasing value of AI-based insights over time. “Trust is very much at the core of the whole shopper-focused approach, and that applies across the entire team, including the retailer, Kraft Heinz, and SymphonyAI,” said Conroy. “We all are confident in bringing our findings and recommendations to spotlight what we think is the best decision to achieve those goals, and we’re all equally committed to learning together as shopper behaviors evolve so that we jointly gain more experience on more data.”
METRO in the cash-and-carry category
With a flexible retail franchise model for its local professional customers operating grocery shops, the German-based international wholesale company METRO sought to automate and speed up planograms and assortment planning for compliance in multiple countries while allowing localization to meet shopper preferences. In selecting SymphonyAI, METRO chose a vendor with market-leading AI-based solutions and deep retail and wholesale domain expertise. The resulting deployment provides more automated, high-impact shelf planning with assortment optimization that is expected to increase revenues for the franchisees. With automated shelf planning that accommodates local market preferences while providing a unifying framework, local METRO teams greatly reduced the manual effort required for shelf planning at the franchising shops, freeing team members to focus on other strategic requirements. The professional customers METRO serves can also rely on a more unified experience across different regions, including online and brick-and-mortar channels.
“We selected SymphonyAI as our preferred partner based on its speed to implementation, proven ROI, and ease of use to provide independent shop owners with planograms with recommendations down to the SKU level to enhance their space efficiency, reduce labor, and create a more unified experience across our many locations,” said Dragos Oprisor, digital project manager, METRO Romania Convenience. “In addition, our multichannel customers will be able to expedite purchases by placing their orders directly from online platforms. Based on positive initial results within METRO Romania, we moved into expanding to more markets throughout Eastern Europe.”
K-VA-T Food Stores in the retailer category
A trusted regional grocer since 1918, Virginia-based K-VA-T Food Stores (Food City’s parent company) is vigilant about its focus on fostering a customer-driven culture and creating an inviting and high-quality shopper experience. The merchandising and marketing teams have pursued multiple strategic priorities with SymphonyAI. These include customer insights, shelf planning, and implementing SymphonyAI master data management, supply chain vendor portal, and promotion optimization solutions. K-VA-T sets an example for other innovative retailers in its adoption of deep customer insights into its ongoing workflows and processes, fueling a culture that truly embodies customer-centric retailing and a data-driven mindset.
“Using the data that is compiled by SymphonyAI customer analytics keeps us nimble in responding to demand shifts in the price/quality spectrum and customer engagement throughout the store,” said Dan Glei, EVP of merchandising and marketing, K-VA-T. “We can easily measure our effectiveness of mass and personalized marketing campaigns. When people begin to identify with that personalization of their stores, that’s when you know you have arrived in terms of experience.”
“This year’s outstanding SymphonyAI Tempo Award winners truly exemplify the spirit of bold innovation and operational excellence that set the pace for retail and CPG leadership,” said Manish Choudhary, president and CEO of the SymphonyAI Retail CPG vertical. “It’s very gratifying to recognize Kraft Heinz, METRO, and K-VA-T for their excellence and accomplishments applying SymphonyAI leading-edge, AI-based technology to deliver powerful business results to their stakeholders and a more engaging experience for shoppers.”
