Typically, I do not cover a solution-specific conference with a dedicated piece sharing incremental capabilities. However, this year’s Blue Yonder ICON 2025 conference, team, and product energy were different. I contemplated how to describe the event: Did the bear just get poked? Has the sleeping giant awakened? Yes, we did see the usual and latest technical capabilities on display, as you would expect: AI, Agentic AI, and the like. I look beyond that and focus on what problems we are solving and the value we bring. This year, it was an avalanche that quickly gained speed and may have long-lasting ramifications.
To summarize, the capabilities shown have the potential of making this the single most impactful category management solutions event of the last decade. Let’s not squander this opportunity.
The Boost
Category management, specifically space management, has just received a boost. Some of the key capabilities and projects include:
- A long-overdue planogram automation and optimization based on historical learnings was previewed. Yes, it is based on AI and agents.
- Collaboration capabilities are now a core component of the platform. Yes, generative AI is also used.
- A data collection and execution mobile app is also being worked on. Yes, computer vision is now part of the capabilities.
- Extending the floor planning solution from 3DVR Solutions as a partner.
- Digital twin mapping capabilities from the parent company, Panasonic Connect.
- New segmentation, trending, and forecasting based on future-looking Social Visual Analytics data source from PCSSO integrated into the platform.
These are the main capabilities, to name a few. One of these, on its own, is not news. The collective is big news and will have a significant impact on the entire ecosystem; honestly, it is long overdue. Many were in the works over a decade ago. I believe that now that the stars are aligned, there is a better chance for them to deliver on the end-to-end category management promise, smartly.
This time, the top leadership support is at the forefront. Technology advancements on the platform make many capabilities a reality with less effort. The solutions’ maturity has reached monumental levels, and the openness to consider alternative data to fuel the system is present.
How Did We Get Here?
It is no secret that Blue Yonder has a majority market share and a built-in competitive advantage. They are the leader, but over the past decade, they have stagnated and not shown the expected leadership. The void they created opened up opportunities but also introduced a lot of noise in the industry. It facilitated a plentiful field of one-off innovations that, in most cases, could not stand independently and did not get the wide industry acceptance you would expect.
Consider assortment and space automation as examples, and there are many of them. They were complex and backward-looking, and although they seemed intriguing on the surface, they were very elementary in their approach, so they were short-lived experiments.
The new generation expects more, and legacy approaches will not resonate with the new user base, forcing change from a customer perspective. Will the leader be able to capture the attention to adopt a complete platform, or will users opt for a distinct solution menu approach?
Responsible Leadership
This is why leadership matters — it fosters self-disruption and encourages new, fresh thinking. Have they achieved the maturity necessary to embark on a new collaborative journey and provide the desperately needed leadership for the industry? I hope so.
The Trifecta Differentiator
You might have heard me say in the past that, to create a real deliverable, Platform, Solution, and Data must come together for a smart end-to-end category management solution. Blue Yonder is uniquely positioned to deliver that. Coupled with Panasonic Connect’s solutions vault, we are witnessing an ecosystem evolve in real time.
A Competitive Ecosystem
Is a competitive yet collaborative ecosystem even possible? It is if you have shown humble leadership and built a win-win-win welcoming environment, benefiting not just the leader but also the customer and the wider industry ecosystem.
The Good Parent
Blue Yonder was acquired by Panasonic Connect about four years ago. It did not make sense then, but now the picture is clearer. While Blue Yonder was kept separate, Panasonic Connect provided support and mentorship to help them achieve their objectives, as well as a vault full of capabilities that automatically brought several differentiators to Blue Yonder beyond monetary incremental investments. Coupling the capabilities and the possibilities already included in the Panasonic Connect portfolio has the potential to grow and deliver the store of the future. Can you envision it?
The Reality
Time to get back to earth. Yes, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see all these capabilities come together to deliver on smart end-to-end category management. The platform can be a double-edged sword. Heavily overlaying technologies from Microsoft and Snowflake, which can make deliverables somewhat seamless, can at the same time bloat costs. Most likely, the focus will be on top-tier larger customers as early adopters. Enough value needs to be demonstrated beyond legacy capabilities and infrastructure efficiencies. It must be evaluated through the Accurately, Repeatedly, at Scale and Speed (ARSS) performance measures to facilitate adoption.
Two points come to mind. The first starts with delivery and execution. The promise is right on; the go-to-market is how it gets measured. The second is that these capabilities get the category management solution to a baseline, not the end-all; it’s what’s next that matters. Using the leadership mantle to foster a collaborative solution is essential.
Days of reactive-based solutions are long gone; the time for proactivity is now. Tomorrow’s solutions today are the new norm.
