Shelf Life: Expert Voices from the Consumer Goods Industry - Using Data to Drive Sales, Supply Chain and Product Decisions with USAOpoly's Eric Richardson

Using Data to Drive Sales, Supply Chain and Product Decisions with USAOpoly's Eric Richardson

11/13/23 • 41 min

Shelf Life: Expert Voices from the Consumer Goods Industry

In this episode we get in-depth on the topic of data-driven decision making with Eric Richardson, Manager of Forecasting and Data Analytics at leading board game company USAopoly. As a data expert, Eric shares how consumer brands can harness data without extensive resources, how to bring and present data to retail buyers to influence replenishment and how to recognize and utilize sudden surges in consumer demand.
This episode explores:

Specific ways to use and present sales, supply chain and forecasting data in conversations with retail buyers
How to spot consumer trends in the data and respond quickly
Ways AI might change the supply chain space
How USAOpoly and the board game industry is thinking about manufacturing in China vs. domestically

Throughout our conversation, Eric emphasizes, not just the importance of data, but also the art of presenting it in a way that is easily understandable to all stakeholders — both inside and outside of the company.
You won't want to miss Eric's advice and perspective on using in data analytics in the consumer goods industry.

Specific ways to use and present sales, supply chain and forecasting data in conversations with retail buyers
How to spot consumer trends in the data and respond quickly
Ways AI might change the supply chain space
How USAOpoly and the board game industry is thinking about manufacturing in China vs. domestically

Previous Episode

Modernizing Your Supply Chain is Faster and Less Expensive Than You Thought with Professor David Simchi-Levi from MIT

We sit down with world-renowned supply chain guru, Professor David Simchi-Levi. This MIT professor and head of the MIT Data Science Lab, shares his insights on supply chain digitization and delivering on the promise of increased forecast accuracy while reducing risks. It's a transformative discussion on how you, with a moderate financial investment, can swiftly digitize your supply chain while reaping the rewards. Our discussion touches on:

How a unified view of demand and segmentation can allow you to craft bespoke supply chain strategies for different products, channels, and markets.
The fusion of analytics, data, and algorithms with intuition, experience, and domain knowledge.
The pioneering work done by the MIT Data Science Lab on supply chain resiliency and how giants like Ford Motor Company leveraged this technology.

We're not just talking theories. We dive straight into how supply chain management can be optimized using smart S&OP and smart execution. Learn We share real-life examples of how a consumer-packaged goods manufacturing company used data sources to predict retail orders, making concepts easy to grasp and apply in your own businesses.
In this discussion we reference:

Harvard Business Review article by David Simchi-Levi, A Simpler Way to Modernize Your Supply Chain
The MIT Data Science Lab

Next Episode

What Black Friday Sales Say About Consumer Spending This Holiday Season with Joel Beal, CEO of Alloy.ai

This week's special bonus episode dives into the into Black Friday, consumer spending, and the state of the economy. Our guest, Joel Beal, CEO of Alloy.ai and economist, provides a unique perspective on the early numbers and what they mean for the larger economy. We delve into:

The preliminary numbers that are emerging post-Black Friday, attempting to decode consumer behavior and market trends
The possibility of deflation
How sales are breaking down in terms of in-store vs. ecommerce

Tune in to this episode of Shelf Life, and get a comprehensive understanding of current economic trends, their impact on consumer spending, and their potential implications for the future.

Shelf Life: Expert Voices from the Consumer Goods Industry - Using Data to Drive Sales, Supply Chain and Product Decisions with USAOpoly's Eric Richardson

Transcript

Speaker 100:00:01.423

Some of the wins I've had . You know , looking at certain big companies' algorithms that they've spent millions of dollars on to develop and the buyer at this big company is really relying on that algorithm to tell them what to order , when to order how much . And there's an example of when I noticed , by graphing out and visualizing how their forecasting algorithm was forecasting