Latin America is experiencing a digital revolution in retail and supply chain management. As e-commerce surges and consumer expectations for speed, convenience, and personalization rise, retailers and brands across the region face a complex landscape: infrastructure variability, regulatory complexity, and the need to serve diverse, rapidly growing markets. Yet, these challenges also present opportunities for transformation. By embracing digitally enabled supply chains, organizations in Latin America can unlock new levels of efficiency, resilience, and customer satisfaction—turning operational complexity into a source of competitive advantage.
Latin America’s retail and supply chain environment is shaped by several distinct factors:
Publicis Sapient partners with leading Latin American retailers to address these challenges through digital transformation, leveraging advanced technologies and proven frameworks to deliver measurable business impact.
A lack of real-time visibility across the supply chain is a common pain point in Latin America. By implementing digital control towers, retailers gain a unified, real-time view of inventory, orders, and logistics costs across all channels and geographies. This enables:
Impact Example: A leading Latin American retailer partnered with Publicis Sapient to deploy a supply chain control tower, achieving $145 million in estimated savings through improved visibility into fulfillment and reverse logistics costs, and immediate gains from optimized transportation routes.
Latin America’s volatile demand patterns require more than traditional forecasting. AI and machine learning models synthesize internal data (sales, promotions, digital traffic) with external signals (social trends, weather, events) to predict demand at granular levels—by SKU, store, or region. This intelligence supports:
Consumers in Latin America expect to shop and receive products on their terms. Digitally enabled supply chains orchestrate inventory and fulfillment across all channels, integrating order management systems to enable:
Impact Example: Retailers leveraging these solutions have achieved up to 48% fulfillment from stores, improved customer conversion through accurate delivery dates, and increased satisfaction with seamless, flexible fulfillment options.
High return rates, especially in apparel, can erode margins. AI-driven returns optimization analyzes return patterns, identifies root causes, and recommends interventions—such as improved product descriptions or sizing guides—to reduce returns and associated costs. Additionally, circular economy models (rental, resale, re-commerce) are gaining traction, appealing to eco-conscious consumers and reducing waste.
Cloud-based platforms are critical for Latin American retailers seeking to scale quickly and adapt to market shifts. Cloud migration enables:
Impact Example: A large domestic retailer migrated to a cloud-based e-commerce platform, achieving a $30 million lift in holiday sales, 50% reduction in development costs, and 25x faster release cycles.
With decades of digital transformation expertise and deep experience in Latin America, Publicis Sapient is uniquely positioned to help retailers and brands:
Our SPEED capabilities—Strategy, Product, Experience, Engineering, Data & AI—ensure that every transformation delivers measurable business outcomes, from increased profitability and operational agility to deeper customer loyalty.
Digitally enabled supply chains are not just a response to Latin America’s challenges—they are the foundation for sustainable growth and competitive differentiation. By investing in real-time visibility, AI-powered planning, omnichannel fulfillment, and cloud-based agility, retailers and brands can:
Ready to transform your supply chain for the Latin American market? Connect with Publicis Sapient to start your journey toward a more profitable, resilient, and customer-centric future.