The 2020s are shaping up to be a decade like no other. Supply chain challenges resulted in a 50% increase in costs according to McKinsey and labor costs have risen significantly over the past 3 years. Despite this, demand continues to grow, pushing the leaders of the post-pandemic era of CPG to prioritize one thing: operational efficiency.
Automation in the CPG industry is not new, but it is evolving rapidly. Performing tasks accurately and at scale, both on the production floor and in the office, not only delivers a competitive edge to the company as a whole, but brings peace of mind to the employees and managers involved in these processes.
On the other hand, there is a steep learning curve to adopting any kind of new technology (think back to when you first implemented your ERP). The time lost in learning, mistakes made in the process, and sheer frustration is all said to be an “investment” towards a future with streamlined processes…
Until the next new software, of course.
Traditional automation in CPG (RPA) fails to deliver the desired ROI for two main reasons:
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The bot-focused infrastructure makes it expensive to deploy, coupled with the additional costs of hiring consultants and engineers make it difficult to justify for most CPG companies.
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The inability to easily make changes to the automation. If there is anything out of the ordinary with your automated process (this can be as little as a column in a spreadsheet moving 2 inches to the left) the automation breaks.
And coordinating between IT and business units is often challenging.
Multi-step procedures such as vendor onboarding and inventory management still remain stubbornly manual due to the high volume of exceptions which break traditional RPA Automation.
In all fairness, CPG leaders have pushed the hard for operational excellence during and after the pandemic, an unprecedented event which shook global supply chains. As the global economy opens again, CPG leaders face a new challenge: Battling inflationary pricing across transportation, raw materials, and labor.
Market leader, P&G, was able to grow gross profits 9.7% since 2020 by prioritizing the single most important asset in the company: Time.
The average IT professional is reported to spend 4.5 hours a week searching for documents according to an IDC white paper published in 2012.
That’s over half a workday lost every week of highly skilled and expensive labor to the company. Our technology has advanced to the point where it is capable of saving this lost time, but not all business users can utilize these capabilities without having coding knowledge.
We believe technology should empower the user, not the other way around. Today, less than 1% of the world knows how to code. So, if we can’t speak the language of computers, why don’t we make computers speak our language?
This is the fundamental idea behind Generative AI Automation.
Imagine billions of business users creating and managing their own automations using simple english. The time and cost saved from automating manual tasks such as processing documents, updating CRM, vendor onboarding, and claims management (among others) can be significant when compounded over time. Additionally, Generative AI automations empower business users by allowing them to spend their time being strategic and, of course, happier without tedious and manual work.
The competitive advantage from automation for the CPG industry goes beyond the obvious time and cost benefits, it allows them to spend more time better understanding and serving their customers.
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Our clients achieved:
- 75%manual data entry eliminated
- 30 hourssaved on invoicing per week
- 2 millionreceipts analyzed per year
