Coles to run Palantir analytics suite across its supermarkets

Coles is set to deploy a new analytics suite across its 840 supermarkets that will “connect its C-Suite to the shelf-edge”, with a particular focus on understanding “workforce-related spend”.

The grocery retailer will today announce a three-year partnership with Palantir Technologies, through which it will utilise the vendor’s Foundry analytics platform and AI platform AIP.

Chief operating and sustainability officer Matt Swindells said there is a “detailed roadmap of work to deliver” over the three years.

He also tied the partnership to Coles’ ‘simplify and save to invest program’, which was announced last year and aims to save the retailer over $1 billion over the next four years. 

Swindells said initial development work on Palantir “has demonstrated how we can enhance our ability to ensure all departments are optimally resourced – to provide not only the best return on workforce spend, but to drive better customer outcomes in-store.”

“We are excited by the capability the Foundry platform brings to rapidly leverage beyond dashboards, and provide a suite of tools utilising AI to our frontline teams,” he said in a statement.

“This will allow them to respond more dynamically to ever-changing trading conditions and customer needs.”

In addition to underpinning real-time decision-making, the platforms are expected to have an impact on “workforce planning, shift efficiency, and a more granular understanding of spend”.

Coles said that Palantir will be analysing “over 10 billion rows of data, comprising each store, team member, shift and allocation across all intervals in a day, every day.”

Foundry, it said, brings “legacy data systems and machine learning into a shared end-to-end view of Coles’ retail ecosystem, including bakery production planning tools for in-store bakeries and Ocado fulfilment centres.”

Ocado technology is set to power automated fulfilment of online orders via two centres in NSW and Victoria.