This case examines how Cardinal Operations helped Nestlé China develop an E-business Smart Planning (ESP) system to address demand planning in China’s rapidly evolving e-commerce sector. As Nestlé China expanded across a wide range of online channels, it faced major challenges in demand forecasting at the SKU-channel-month level, managing rapid product launches and innovative promotional formats, and keeping up with downstream channel operations. The case illustrates how Cardinal Operations mapped Nestlé China’s end-to-end demand planning process, designed a collaborative digital platform linking Marketing, Sales, and Demand Planning, and developed forecasting algorithms tailored to different products and scenarios. Consequently, Nestlé China saw a 10% improvement in forecast accuracy for key products and realized tens of millions of Chinese yuan in cost savings by reducing inventory levels. The case highlights the importance of collaborative demand planning, supply chain integration, and leveraging technology to improve operational efficiency in fast-evolving markets.

• Understand the complexity of demand planning in a fast-changing e-commerce environment.
• Assess the benefits and challenges of improving downstream visibility in demand planning.
• Describe and analyze Nestlé China’s end-to-end demand planning process.
• Identify the key success factors that enabled Cardinal Operations to effectively support Nestlé China in developing and implementing the ESP system.
• Explain the key success factors behind the ESP system’s successful development and implementation.