Infor, a leader in business software technology, is partnering with Whole Foods Market to innovate how the grocery chain handles their merchandising and supply chain.

Whole Foods is known for being at the forefront of best practices and quality when it comes to food; their brand recognition has grown steadily over the years and they are famous for being early adopters of modern services like grocery-delivery and digital payments. However, Whole Foods has nw struck a partnership with Infor to further revolutionize how they handle their grocery supply chain and merchandising.

ERP: INNOVATION FOR YOUR GROCERIES

As Infor is known for their streamlined and efficient enterprise business technology, it makes sense that these two companies would form a powerful alliance to build a cloud-based ERP platform for the grocery chain. Like many other smart companies, Whole Foods recognizes the increasing competition in their organic and natural foods niche from other grocery chains like Costco and Trader Joe’s, and have taken a step in the right direction to not only differentiate themselves from the pack but also improve their business operations as well. Through better controlling and analyzing of their inventory and sources, Whole Foods can use that data to speed up processes and services as well as use it to better serve their shoppers.

From weights and quantities of products on hand being immediately available in real time, tracking and reporting on when certain produce was harvested, to monitoring environmentally conscious aspects such as their water usage and energy output; Whole Foods can use Infor’s ERP technology to continue their momentum towards being an organization that values accountability, traceability, and responsibility. The new ERP software will also allow Whole Foods to improve their existing processes; the company has fairly fragmented existing systems currently in place, which means they are still manually performing some tasks that similar competitors have already automated. The new technology from Infor will allow Whole Foods to jump to the front of the pack by unifying all of their systems into one cohesive and communicative solution.

ERP PAVES THE WAY

This Whole Foods/Infor partnership is also mutually beneficial; Infor intends to use the lessons learned from this experience to develop a new platform of retail software that could be used by other like-minded companies in the future. As Whole Foods blazes a trail, they set a precedent for other companies to follow suit – which Infor intends to provide for. Infor CEO Charles Phillips has stated that even though the retail world has changed dramatically over the last 20 years, he has noticed that there hasn’t been much innovation or change in the way these businesses manage and sell their products. Something that Infor is going to change by partnering with Whole Foods Market.