Artificial Intelligence SaaS for prescribing optimal retail merchandising decisions

Project Information

Formulate

Grant agreement ID: 868775

DOI

10.3030/868775

Project closed

EC signature date 15 April 2019

Start date 1 May 2019

End date 31 October 2019

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

FORMULATE AB
Sweden

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Formulate (Artificial Intelligence SaaS for prescribing optimal retail merchandising decisions)

Reporting period: 2019-05-01 to 2019-10-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Up to 50% of retail revenue is sold on promotion and up to half of the promotions are unprofitable. Due to system limitations and analytical complexity, evaluating and optimizing promotions is a difficult and time-consuming task for retailers. The possible impact of price tactic, feature and display in combination with product cannibalization, stockpiling and halo effects makes it literally inhuman to get a true overview of the performance.

Formulate's Retail DecisionCloud is the first easy-to-use fully SaaS based analytics platform in the market that gives retailers the facts and forecasts they need to make better promotion decisions. Using technology based on AI, Formulate detects complex patterns in retailers transaction data and let them see which products, discounts, brands and suppliers that grow their business.

The technology has already been validated on the Swedish market. For international commercialisation though, Formulate needed to develop a more comprehensive business plan that could guide further expansion and scaling up. Therefore, the Phase 1 feasibility assessment aimed at confirming the commercial potential of our technology and optimising the go-to-market strategy.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Technical Feasibility as well as commercial potential of the product were explored and confirmed. Within the project, we have identified areas for future technical improvements of the platform that are needed to match the clients’ needs. Furthermore, we have conducted a deeper market assessment and optimised our commercialisation and sales strategies.

Phase 1 feasibility study laid a solid foundation for our future international market expansion, for which we plan to seek external funding, including participation in the EIC Accelerator program.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

When the data has been imported via our API, it’s freed from the restrictions of retail’s legacy systems. Our cloud-based solution contains analysis workflows, algorithms, database structures, security and monitoring processes optimised for one purpose; to generate insights that help make better promotion decisions faster.

Most retailers agree that promotions are important for their business, but also that they are difficult to plan, evaluate and improve. We have developed Retail DecisionCloud, a solution that is based on years of research and state-of-the-art machine learning. It provides retailers with the impact from their historical campaigns, lets them simulate the impact of future

Formulate's team