In today’s retail landscape, the supply chain has evolved from a back-office function to a strategic growth engine. As consumers demand ever-faster, more convenient, and personalized experiences, retailers face mounting pressure to deliver seamless omnichannel journeys—while maintaining profitability and resilience in the face of ongoing disruption. The challenge is clear: how can retailers reinvent their supply chains to meet these expectations, control costs, and turn operational complexity into a source of competitive advantage?
The acceleration of e-commerce, the proliferation of fulfillment options (from BOPIS and curbside to last-mile delivery), and the volatility of global markets have exposed the limitations of traditional, siloed supply chains. Today’s digital shoppers expect to buy anywhere, fulfill anywhere, and return anywhere—placing unprecedented demands on inventory visibility, demand planning, and fulfillment agility. Yet, only a small fraction of retailers have full inventory visibility across stores, in transit, and in returns, while fulfillment costs can account for up to 12% of revenue, and online returns rates are up to three times higher than in-store purchases.
To thrive, retailers must move beyond incremental improvements and embrace holistic supply chain transformation—one that is data-driven, customer-centric, and powered by advanced technologies like AI and cloud.
At Publicis Sapient, we help retailers unlock value across the supply chain by focusing on four foundational pillars:
A single, real-time view of inventory across all channels is the bedrock of omnichannel retail. Our approach enables:
Client Success: Eileen Fisher implemented a consolidated inventory system for physical and digital stores, creating an “endless aisle” that reduced order cancellations, increased e-commerce sales by double digits, and improved capacity management for store teams.
Modern demand planning leverages AI and machine learning to synthesize internal and external data—historical sales, digital traffic, weather, social trends, and more—to predict demand with greater accuracy. This enables:
Client Success: A multinational beauty company built a scalable forecasting engine that improved demand planning accuracy by over 10% across 900 top SKUs in just six weeks.
Omnichannel fulfillment is about orchestrating inventory and logistics across all channels to optimize for speed, cost, and customer satisfaction. Our Fulfillment Optimization Framework unifies:
Client Success: A leading Latin American retailer used our control tower solution to gain visibility into fulfillment costs per order, unlocking $145 million in potential savings and $2 million in immediate gains through transportation cost optimization. Retailers using our returns optimization frameworks have reduced processing times, increased resale rates, and improved customer satisfaction, turning a cost center into a loyalty driver.
True supply chain transformation is only possible with a modern technology foundation. Cloud platforms enable real-time data sharing, scalability, and rapid experimentation—critical for adapting to demand shifts and testing new fulfillment models. AI and machine learning power predictive analytics for demand planning, inventory optimization, and returns reduction. Automation—robotics, RPA, and micro-fulfillment—drives efficiency and scalability in both warehouses and stores.
Client Success: A large domestic retailer migrated to a cloud-based e-commerce platform, achieving a $30M lift in holiday sales, 50% reduction in development costs, and 25x faster release cycles—freeing teams to focus on innovation, not infrastructure.
Publicis Sapient’s SPEED approach—Strategy, Product, Experience, Engineering, Data & AI—ensures that supply chain transformation is not just a technology upgrade, but a holistic reinvention of operations, customer experience, and business models. Our Algorithmic Supply Chain Framework guides retailers through:
The future of retail supply chain is agile, intelligent, and customer-obsessed. By investing in global inventory visibility, AI-powered demand planning, fulfillment and returns optimization, and a modern cloud foundation, retailers can:
At Publicis Sapient, we partner with retailers to design and deliver supply chain transformations that drive measurable business impact—today and for the future. Ready to reinvent your supply chain for the omnichannel era? Let’s start the conversation.