SymphonyAI Retail CPG: Prioritizing Projects And Better Managing Them To Align With Corporate Strategy

Company Overview

Industry: Software

Headquarters: Frisco, Texas

30 years of experience

800 employees

Hundreds of customers in 70 countries

Website: www.symphonyretailai.com

SymphonyAI Retail CPG, a SymphonyAI vertical, is a leading provider of end-to-end, integrated AI-powered merchandising, marketing, and supply chain solutions for retailers and CPG manufacturers worldwide. Harnessing the power of AI, SymphonyAI Retail CPG solutions enhance agility, performance, and revenue growth across the retail value chain from source to consumer. Trusted by more than 1,200 leading retailers and manufacturers, SymphonyAI Retail CPG serves 15 of the top 25 global grocery retailers, the top 25 global CPG manufacturers, thousands of retail brands, and hundreds of national and regional chains. SymphonyAI Retail CPG is transforming retail and building a culture of contributing to positive change: SymphonyAI Retail CPG achieved 2022 Great Place to Work certification in all nine countries for which it was eligible.

SymphonyAI Retail CPG’s Clear Expectations of a PPM Tool

“As a PMO, I am the go-to for both project teams and management teams, to whom I have to provide the insights they need to make decisions and trade-offs “on a platter”.

Souad Elmanouni, R&D SCM PMO Director

When adopting Sciforma at the beginning of 2021, Souad Elmanouni, R&D SCM PMO Director of SymphonyAI Retail CPG, had a specific set of requirements in mind. These included:

1. A SINGLE tool for all R&D SCM teams who manage projects to replace the multiple platforms used until then
2. Eliminating duplicate data entry across different tools to make the data more reliable
3. Calculating project progress in a simple and reliable way based on timesheets submitted through a dedicated tool and automatically retrieved via an API interface
4. Supporting senior management in their decision making with the right reports

For example, the combination of two reports (“forecasted capacity”, which consolidates all the project requests in the portfolio, and “staffing”) allows us to determine whether we have the capacity to take on new projects at a glance.

Souad Elmanouni, R&D SCM PMO Director

5. Calculating the available production capacity over a full year, with the ability to filter by country, team, role, etc. in order to prioritize based on resource availability
6. Automated calculation of the project KPIs prioritized by management, i.e. effort variance and delivery date adherence
7. Improved project collaboration thanks to integrated notes, actions, and an audit trail enabling everyone to retrace project lifecycles, all updated in real time
8. Helping busy project managers to focus more on management by automating some tasks (such as project initialization) and providing generic, pre-filled project templates
9. Helping PMOs to focus on project control, especially for high-risk initiatives, rather than waste time on data entry
10. Increasing productivity by replacing some of the tools previously used and by developing interfaces with the Rest API

“For a solution vendor like SymphonyAI Retail CPG, it is key to know our capacity across the whole chain — from product management and maintenance to services. Sciforma is now the hub of the entire organization, giving us an overview of the production capacity by team and by profile.

Souad Elmanouni, R&D SCM PMO Director

Tangible Results

After a few months of seamless deployment and a well conducted change management effort to inform, involve and support users, Sciforma is starting to create value for SymphonyAI Retail CPG.

Team members have gained visibility into their upcoming assignments and deadlines. Managers and service teams have access to customized reports with real-time data updates, which has reduced emails communications.

PMOs now have a consolidated overview of the whole portfolio, enabling them to administer, analyze, monitor, make prioritization recommendations, and better manage projects in alignment with the business strategy thanks to improved visibility into capacity.

So much so that:

“We have managed to double the number of projects and of project managers to support … without doubling the number of PMOs!”

Souad Elmanouni, R&D SCM PMO Director