Many Japanese companies are facing challenges in digitizing supply chain information and improving supply chain planning, which is becoming more complex due to globalization and the strengthening of private brands (hereinafter, "PB"). Marubeni and o9 have signed a "Strategic Cooperation Agreement" to strategically sell "Digital SCM Service" and "o9 AI Platform" to Japanese companies mainly in the retail and distribution industries. Marubeni and o9 will also collaborate with advanced comprehensive services that utilize NRI's digital technology and data.

Marubeni does not only provide stand-alone services such as "consultation" or "software sales", but also provides "commercial distribution/logistics batch consignment" or "BPO²" for customers who have difficulty in introducing SCM software based only on their own knowledge and resources. Through the "consignment services" by BPO, Marubeni will promptly and continuously solve customer issues such as "expansion of PB ratio", "reduction of inventory", and "reduction of price reduction sales rate", thus realizing supply chain reformation.

o9 provides innovative SCM solutions, and since the release of software equipped with AI algorithms in 2015, it has been expanded rapidly in Western companies that are trying to utilize IBP³. The "o9 AI Platform" is superior to other companies' systems in its ability to flexibly deal with various constraints, optimizations and high-speed data processing, and o9 will continuously develop services for a wide range of industries through a strong partnership with Marubeni and NRI.

NRI has a wealth of knowledge and achievements in system introduction in the supply chain area, and has a large number of data scientists specializing in data analysis and algorithm construction. Taking this project as an opportunity, NRI will strengthen their collaboration with Marubeni and o9, and achieve customer satisfaction through making a new digital SCM service work seamlessly with the existing system on launch, and by constructing SCM functions suitable for individual companies derived from data analysis.

Going forward, these three companies will jointly contribute reforming customers' SCM and improving their global competitiveness.

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  Digital SCM Service
  Through digitization of supply chain management and overall optimization in a data-driven manner, Marubeni will realize cost reduction and maximization of sales for customers, and break away from manual operation. Marubeni provides services that create this effect through BPO and commercial distribution contracts.

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  BPO（Business Process Outsourcing）
  Outsource business operations and business processes to specialist third-party companies.

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  IBP（Integrated Business Planning）
  A method of optimizing the management of the entire supply chain and the integrated business plan by evolving and integrating the sales and business plans (S & OP) of supply, demand, inventory optimization, product improvement, strategic projects, etc, through sharing information and speeding up decision-making by business units such as production, sales, and inventory in a company.

Company Overview

Marubeni

o9

NRI