Associated Wholesale Grocers Inc. and IRI have teamed up to launch AWG Partner Gateway, a portal to enable integrated collaboration between members and their vendor partners using IRI Liquid Data technology.
“Our members represent more than $23 billion in retail sales, making the collective cooperative the sixth largest supermarket group in the United States,” said David Smith, AWG’s president and CEO. “Our mission is to provide our member-retailers all of the products, tools and services they need to compete favorably in all markets served.
“With IRI’s expertise, data access and advanced technology, AWG is empowering our members and vendor partners to leverage data and analytics as strategic differentiators for improved growth and profitability and to further achieve our mission,” he said.
By automating and connecting the key forms that vendors use to communicate and sell to AWG, and automating reporting to AWG vendor partners, the gateway will drive organizational and operational productivity, reduce overall collaborative costs to serve and provide standardized reports, analytics, forecasts and automated processes based on AWG’s “one source of truth” database.
“IRI is thrilled to be bringing a highly customized solution to the important independent retailer and wholesaler markets in partnership with AWG,” said Wei Lin Wong, president of global retail and strategy for IRI. “The AWG Partner Gateway creates a best-in-class program to help AWG provide their vendor partners and members with accurate, real-time and actionable insights driven by the most representative wholesale distributor data available.”
The AWG Partner Gateway’s transformational capabilities will include an enterprise-wide view, standardized category management and execution analytics, long-term demand forecasting and automated vendor partner workflows. This portal is a key element in AWG’s Convergence journey, designed to deliver incremental and lasting value to its members.
Convergence is AWG’s long-term strategy to operate as a $23 billion cooperative retailing organization, delivering “best-in-class” capabilities to its members and vendor partners.
The AWG Partner Gateway will roll out in multiple phases, beginning in the second quarter of 2022. Phase 1 will leverage AWG’s order and shipment data to provide its merchants and vendor partners with standardized data, reporting, analytics and insights and create differentiated capabilities in assortment optimization, planning and forecasting, and workflow automation.
Phase 2 and beyond will provide AWG members with visibility into local competitive market insights as well as the ability to integrate point-of-sale data for competitive differentiation and further localization.
AWG is a cooperative food wholesaler that serves more than 1,100 member companies and over 3,200 locations throughout 28 states from nine wholesale divisions. The consolidated sales for the company are $10.6 billion.
In addition to its cooperative wholesale operations, the company also operates subsidiary companies that provide specific real estate and supermarket development services, print and digital marketing services, health and beauty care, general merchandise, pharmaceutical products, specialty foods, and natural and organic products.
For more information, visit awginc.com.
IRI is a provider of big data, predictive analytics and forward-looking insights that help CPG, OTC health care organizations, retailers and financial services and media companies grow their businesses.
For more information, visit iriworldwide.com.
