Retail and Consumer Product Consulting

Deliver experiences and products that create more valuable relationships with consumers while improving sustainability and profitability
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The enterprise in 2030: AI will be the business model

By 2030, 53% of executives expect AI to fundamentally reshape business models in their industries, and 70% plan to reinvest AI-generated value to drive growth and innovation. Discover our five predictions about the most successful enterprises in 2030 and the steps to gain an AI-first advantage.

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The value of connection

As the choices of products and channels to purchase continue to expand, brands, retailers and customers’ experiences need to be connected to be valuable. If there is no connection from the virtual store to the contact center, or from the digital twin to the shop floor, opportunities to create deeper, more valuable, differentiated relationships are left unclaimed. The power of AI is helping make these connections faster, more personal and more intelligent for your specific organization but you need to deliver the promise made to the consumer.

When it comes to fulfilling those experiences and purchases, two critical factors are reshaping retail and consumer goods operations. First, the shift toward sustainable operations is accelerating the reinvention needed to achieve the quadruple bottom line: protecting people, planet, profit and purpose. Second, AI and open hybrid cloud technology are remaking processes that lower costs and increase resilience, improve the quality of omnichannel experiences and launch new business models to increase market share.

Find out why AI is essential to transforming application modernization for retail
Benefits 115%

increase in revenue in over two years for a leading UK retailer.1

80%

increase in operational efficiency through modernized enterprise platforms for a leading sportswear company in Asia.2

95%

reduction in deployment time, from 1–2 days to approximately 45 minutes.3

Capabilities Customer experience and hybrid commerce

Create omnichannel customer experiences across existing and new channels using AI-fueled technologies to drive top and bottom-line growth and data-driven customer insight to deliver permissioned, personalized and contextual interactions that engage consumers.

Explore connected experience creation
Customer service modernization

Employ AI to create revenue opportunities through advanced analytics and data-driven next-action offers while speeding time to resolution on any channel. AI-fueled customer care transforms contact center operations to realize cost reductions while increasing customer satisfaction and retention.

Explore customer service solutions
Sustainable supply chain transformation

Enhance visibility and reduce cyber risk in the end-to-end supply chain ecosystem, leveraging technologies such as AI, threat intelligence, risk quantification and scenario planning. Use this to embed supply chain sustainability factors into workflows and decision making to connect profit and purpose.

Explore supply chain solutions
ESG measurement and reporting

Turn ambition into action by revealing the state of your organization and knowing the impact of the decisions and the changes you make by gathering comprehensive data. Use the enhanced visibility to address regulations in transparency and responsibility and to understand the best way to integrate sustainability into long-term growth strategy.

Explore profit and purpose solutions
ERP modernization

Deliver differentiated customer experiences and more productive operations by leveraging open, hybrid architectures, AI and large enterprise solutions to better grow revenue through improved cross-sell and upsell opportunities, lower operating cost through automated operations.

Read how Migros is transforming with IBM and SAP

Market recognition

Forbes recognizes IBM Consulting as one of America’s Best Management Consulting Firms in 2025

IBM Consulting was recognized for the 10th consectutive year as one of the best management consulting firm. Discover what sets us apart.

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Forbes 2025 worlds best management consulting firms tile
Co-create with IBM Garage ™
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Ideate, build, measure, iterate and scale solutions seamlessly with our end-to-end framework of design thinking, agile and DevOps practices. Achieve speed-to-value and adopt breakthrough technologies in your pricing and retail strategy through the partnership created with your team and a diverse set of IBM experts in business, design and technology.

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Case studies
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Boots grows digital orders 42% with hybrid commerce
The UK’s leading pharmacy-led health and beauty retailer measures significant growth and continues almost two centuries of innovation with help from IBM Consulting.
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FGF reimagines its enterprise platforms
The “tech company that bakes” prepares for growth with integrated, ultra-efficient human resources processes to create a future ready workforce.
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Sweet Success with AI-Powered Supply Chain
British Sugar partnered with IBM to embed generative AI and digital twin technology into its operations, significantly reducing decision-making time and raw material costs while preserving institutional knowledge for future growth.
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Brewing a Digital Backbone for Tomorrow
Heineken teamed with IBM to modernize legacy systems and build a “Digital Backbone,” enabling massive gains in deployment speed, automation, and data efficiency across global operations.

Insights

A system of connected circles in the style of purple 3D threads on a warm background
A guide to maximizing returns with trustworthy, scalable AI Unlock AI's Potential
Wide shot through doors of young women browsing bakery items on shelves
Build a differentiated brand where sustainability and profits converge
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Increase consumer and employee satisfaction with generative AI
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5 ways retailers and brands can drive value in the enterprise metaverse
Related solutions   Intelligent customer service operations

Digitize customer interaction operations to improve efficiency while increasing NPS and loyalty.  Generative AI-enabled self-service and agent experiences help improve satisfaction and reduce the cost to service. They also provide opportunities for additional cross-sell and upsell.

Explore our customer service capabilities
Managed marketing services  

Make your brand stand out in the crowded consumer marketplace and maintain its profitable growth despite the many potential obstacles that may arise. We bring managed data solutions with AI to optimize campaign execution with intelligence and automation that help understand consumer behavior, increase response rates and enhance return on marketing investment.

Explore our marketing capabilities
Finance, procurement and accounting BPO 

Consumer goods, merchandising and retail businesses have unique needs when it comes to finance and procurement.  Ensure that your source-to-pay, closing reports and even connection to trade promotion performance are optimized for your organization’s unique needs. 

Explore our finance transformation capabilities
Talent and HR outsourcing  

Modernize your talent functions by converging skills, technology and data to transform experiences throughout the hiring and onboarding processes, as well as in the entire employee lifecycle.  With historically higher attrition rates in the consumer industries, our managed services can help consumer goods companies and specialty retailers to achieve significant savings in the seasonal and full-term hiring procedure as part of the holistic talent acquisition process.

Explore our talent and HR capabilities

Industries

Find out more about other IBM industries solutions

Banking and financial makets Energy Federal Government Healthcare Telecommunications
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Footnotes

1 IBM Boots UK case study, © Copyright IBM Corporation 2022.

2  IBM Anta Group case study, © Copyright IBM Corporation 2020

3 Brewing a future of connected excellence through digital transformation