Ahold USA and RSi enhance the supplier relationship with Vendor Collaboration Programme

Ahold USA, Inc., parent company of supermarkets Giant Landover, Stop & Shop New England, Stop & Shop New York Metro, Giant Carlisle, and of online grocery Peapod, has partnered with Retail Solutions Inc. (RSi) to set a new standard of excellence for vendor collaboration programmes by introducing shared business processes across the enterprise.

Ahold USA has leveraged RSi's data platform and collaboration tools to better align Ahold USA business goals and daily priorities with its vendor partners. This has allowed Ahold USA to improve operational execution, realise new efficiencies and increase product availability. Furthermore, Ahold USA vendor partners, both warehouse and DSD, have recaptured incremental sales and achieved significant cost savings through Ahold USA's revolutionary in-store alerting programme and advanced collaborative business analytics.

"With the customer's experience at the center of our success, we recognised the opportunity to create a truly collaborative programme where vendors and our retail businesses work together to problem-solve, reach goals and measure the effectiveness of our efforts to create a superior shopping experience for their consumers," said Walt Lentz, SVP of Planning, Replenishment and Logistics at Ahold USA.

Ahold USA selected RSi as a preferred partner due to the structured nature of RSi's approach. This approach uses formal use cases to drive actionable insights through the richness of the data provided by Ahold USA. Ahold USA and its vendor partners are able to make more informed decisions in near-real time and collaborate on vital business needs with this new Vendor Collaboration Programme.

These areas of action include reduced distribution voids, improved on-shelf availability, faster speed to shelf for product introductions, reduced unsaleables and improved promotional execution. Ahold USA and RSi have taken their collaboration programme to a new level by incorporating daily downstream data turned into powerful alerting and analytic capabilities so that vendors can better execute against a single, shared version of the truth. Ahold USA has set a new standard of excellence with over three years of focus and a dedicated staff invested in the programme.

"Ahold USA is changing the way retailers view, share, and derive value from their data. They are utilizing RSi to take their vendor relationships and business planning to a new level of efficiency and effectiveness," said Jonathan Golovin, CEO of RSi. Adding, "The results they are achieving across their evolving programme are a clear indication of its success and future potential. Our alerts and real-time reporting capabilities make true collaboration possible with the benefit sustainable and measurable for both supplier and retailer."

A key driver of the Vendor Collaboration Programme is an in-store alerting programme which enables Ahold USA's businesses to deliver on-shelf availability alerts to their store associates each morning. More than three million such alerts have been resolved since programme inception. This has helped to identify and solve root causes of out-of-stocks and streamline in-store operations.

Additional key elements of the Ahold USA Vendor Collaboration Programme:

• Executive, cross-functional sponsorship: Program spans the entire organisation, including store operations at each business unit, merchandising and supply chain teams, and has full executive support and sponsorship.
• Dedicated corporate team: Ahold USA has a team dedicated to manage the programme and work with vendors to collaborate on the data, insights, and issues uncovered.
• Investment in store resources: Ahold USA's businesses have invested in store teams to close store-specific out-of-stock alerts and ensure optimal levels of on-shelf availability.
• Integrated scorecards: Scorecards are generated to provide real time reporting capabilities and support executive planning initiatives.