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Speaking at a recent investor day for Metcash, ALM CEO Chris Baddock has outlined a transformation of its digital business as one of four key initiatives. The other three initiatives include driving brand awareness and appeal, owned and exclusive brands and supply chain flexibility and efficiency. He added: “It’s no good having great systems if you don’t have great data, so we have to clean our data and make sure there is a conduit between the retailer and ourselves, so that we can use that data to give the most effective and efficient promotional programs.”

ALM has already started working with Complexica to use artificial intelligence to develop promotional plans and also to help predict marketplace performance.

Bringing merchandising, loyalty and marketing strategies and insights ever-closer together to improve customer service is the name of the game for West Australia’s Liquor Barons liquor retailer as it brings on a fresh promotional planning platform. Liquor Barons is a WA-only retail co-operative with 80 liquor stores split into two brands: Liquor Barons (64 branded stores); and Bucks Off. The business has signed an agreement with Complexica for its Promotional Campaign Manager (PCM) product to help automate and streamline promotional planning and supplier portal functionality. Project scoping commences in January through to March and the intention is to go live with the platform from mid-2021.

Complexica Managing Director Matt Michalewicz has discussed the rise of artificial intelligence and its potential for the drinks industry at a Drinks Association webinar. 

“For the liquor industry in particular, advances in Artificial Intelligence systems and Machine Learning algorithms can drive improvements in high-value areas such as trade spend and promotional planning, pricing, demand forecasting and inventory optimization, as well as multi-channel marketing and sales activities,” Michalewicz said. "The problem is that there has been so much technological development in the recent past, that most liquor industry participants are unaware of what’s now possible and the benefits that can be realised.”

Complexica Pty Ltd, a leading provider of Artificial Intelligence software for supply & demand optimisation, announced today that it has signed a contract with Lion for the deployment of its award-winning Promotional Campaign Manager (PCM), powered by Complexica's Artificial Intelligence engine, Larry, the Digital Analyst®. The cloud-based application will provide Lion with advanced capabilities for predicting the value of future promotional plans based on volume, revenue, and margin, as well as generating what-if scenarios and optimised plans based upon a variety of constraints, business rules, and KPI objectives.

“Lion is one of Australasia’s largest food and beverage companies, supplying various alcohol products to wholesalers and retailers, and running multiple and frequent trade promotions throughout the year. The creation of promotional plans is a complicated task that requires considerable expertise and effort, and is an area where improved decision-making has the potential to positively impact the sales growth of various Lion products and product categories,” said Mark Powell, Lion’s National Sales Director. “Given Complexica’s world-class prediction and optimisation capabilities, award-winning software applications, and significant customer base in the food & alcohol industry, we have selected Complexica as our vendor of choice for trade promotion optimisation.”

Metcash has implemented Complexica's artificial intelligence (AI)-powered Promotional Campaign Manager (PCM) to bring a little more ‘smarts’ to its promotional and retailer profitability. Phase one is complete, after the agreement was signed last year, within Metcash’s liquor division, Australian Liquor Marketers (ALM), which operates out of 15 distribution centres in Australia and New Zealand. In July, Complexica and ALM kicked off phase two of the project, which will introduce advanced prediction and optimisation capabilities into the deployed system.  

Complexica Pty Ltd, a leading provider of Artificial Intelligence software for optimising sales, marketing, & supply chain decisions, announced today that its award-winning Promotional Campaign Manager (PCM) software has gone live on time and on budget within Metcash’s liquor division - Australian Liquor Marketers (ALM). Next month, Complexica and ALM will kick off phase 2 of the project, which will introduce advanced prediction and optimisation capabilities into the deployed system.  

“We are  excited to progress our partnership with  Complexica to the next phase, with the initial roll out of their Promotional Campaign Manager (PCM) software being well received by the business and delivering on the promise of removing duplication and manual work from our processes. Phase two of the project will allow us to build promotional programs using advanced prediction and optimisation algorithms, to ensure the best possible outcomes for our retailers,” said Joel Zamek, General Manager of Merchandising at Australian Liquor Marketers.

Speaking to the 2019 Annual Leaders Forum edition of National Liquor News, Rod Pritchard the Interim CEO of ALM detailed the great shape the business is in and how it aims to continue delivering sustainable growth for its independents into 2019.

When asked how he planned on continuing to build and improve the IBA network into 2019, Rod answered: “Our IBA offer is fully focused on delivering against the needs of our shoppers. We tailor our offer for each of our retail banners in the IBA network, to best meet the changing shopper expectations across the various retail channels that exist in the market. We utilise the shopper insights and data that we have at our disposal to make informed ranging and programming decisions, and to fine tune our offer accordingly. We recently announced our partnership with Complexica – who are experts in the artificial intelligence field – and we will be rolling out the new promotions platform that they have developed for us in the first quarter of 2019. This is a particularly exciting initiative for us, and we expect our retailers and suppliers to mutually benefit from the outputs of the new platform.”

Complexica Pty Ltd, a leading provider of Artificial Intelligence software for optimising sales, marketing, & supply chain decisions, announced today that it has signed a contract with Cellarmasters to provide the online retailer with advanced analytics services. The engagement will allow Cellarmasters to investigate and draw out actionable insights from a variety of data sets, with a view to optimise personalisation. Other Complexica customers in the food & beverage industry include Liquor Marketing Group (LMG), Australian Liquor Marketers (ALM), Treasury Wine Estates, Pernod Ricard Winemakers, CostaGroup, and PFD Food Services. 

Metcash’s liquor division, Australian Liquor Marketers (ALM), is taking its marketing to the cloud after signing an agreement with Complexica for standardising and optimising its promotional activities using Artificial Intelligence. ALM supports more than 2700 independently-owned stores operating under the IBA banner group including Cellarbrations, the Bottle-O, IGA Liquor, Thirsty Camel, and Porters Liquor.

“Following a successful proof-of-concept earlier this year, we have selected Complexica as our vendor of choice for standardising and optimising our promotional planning activities,” said interim CEO of ALM, Rod Pritchard. “Complexica’s Promotional Campaign Manager [PCM] will provide us with a cloud-based platform for automating and optimising promotional planning for more than 2700 stores, leading to improved decision-making, promotional effectiveness, and financial outcomes for our retail stores.”

Complexica Pty Ltd, a leading provider of Artificial Intelligence software for optmising sales & marketing activities, announced today that it has signed a contract with Liquor Marketing Group for the delivery of its cloud-based Promotional Campaign Manager (PCM).