Finland-headquartered Relex Solutions provides a unified supply chain and retail planning platform that aligns and optimises demand, merchandising, supply chain, operations and production planning across the end-to-end value chain.
The report was compiled by Researchscape, surveying 519 retail, consumer packaged goods manufacturing and wholesale leaders across seven countries in January 2025.
Companies are aggressively investing in artificial intelligence (AI) across supply chains to counter inflation and trade volatility, but a growing execution gap threatens to derail these efforts, a report by Relex Solutions found.
While 60 per cent of surveyed firms are prioritising AI and automation investments, 44 per cent cannot find the specialised talent needed to implement these technologies.
While 60 per cent of surveyed companies are prioritising AI and automation investments, nearly half (44 per cent) can’t find the specialised talent needed to implement these technologies.
Companies also struggle with budget constraints that limit their ability to scale AI initiatives (43 per cent) as well as poor data quality (39 per cent).
Inflation is reshaping retail strategies—31 per cent of retailers are optimising operations and 31 per cent are adjusting pricing to stay competitive, a release from Relex Solutions said.
Private label expansion has become mainstream—59 per cent of retailers are growing own-brand portfolios as consumers seek value.
These findings expand on the early released findings of the report showing 60 per cent of companies fundamentally restructuring their supply chains, with 52 per cent citing demand volatility as their primary challenge and 47 per cent concerned about tariff uncertainty and trade disruptions.
The report also identifies Generative AI (59 per cent), Predictive AI (43 per cent), and Cloud-native solutions (34 per cent) as the top technology investment priorities, with most companies allocating between 5-20 per cent of their technology budgets to AI-driven solutions despite market volatility.
Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)
