Q&A with CEO Mikko Kärkkäinen: Scaling AI for consumer-centric growth

Mar 3, 2025 • 8 min

In the retail industry and beyond, AI is taking center stage, but even as it advances, implementation and scalability remain challenging. In fact, 90% of AI implementations fail to scale. How can retailers avoid becoming a statistic and effectively implement and maintain their AI initiatives?

Our very own CEO, Mikko Kärkkäinen, lays out how business leaders can achieve scalable AI with a unified platform that will keep retailers growing and setting new standards for customer satisfaction for years to come.

Q1: “How is AI impacting retail strategies and priorities?”

Mikko: There’s a reason 64% of CEOs are planning to invest in AI systems.

When you think about the problems a retailer faces on any given day, they’re fielding geopolitical complications and navigating ongoing issues like interest rates and inflation. At the same time, they’re feeling the crunch of growing complexity. They have too much data and too few insights. They have limited tech capabilities, competing priorities, and finite resources, and there isn’t a clear path toward data-driven profitability. These kinds of day-to-day roadblocks impede the loftier goals like ESG targets, which themselves can be costly initiatives.

This knot of complications is why so many companies are racing to embed the latest AI. They recognize that advanced AI systems hold tremendous potential for greater efficiency, better bottom lines, and happier customers.

And these companies have the right mindset! For years now, retailers have had to prioritize protective supply chain measures and focus on resilience. With the advent of more advanced AI, there’s a real opportunity to shift from a survival mindset to a more growth-oriented strategy. The earlier retailers make this shift, the sooner they can start reaping the benefits and pulling ahead of the competition.

There’s a real opportunity to shift from a survival mindset to a more growth-oriented strategy.

Q2: “If it’s such a priority, why are so many retailers struggling to scale AI across their organizations?”

Mikko: Siloed planning is the number one impediment to AI scalability. Across the industry, planners use highly customized solutions that support their specific planning functions but aren’t integrated with other systems. So, one team uses a demand forecasting solution while another team uses a completely separate solution for promo planning. These teams have to use time-consuming workarounds like spreadsheets and email updates to communicate with each other, and productivity takes a hit.

Even if these systems individually incorporate AI, they are still siloed from each other. This results in two main problems:

Fractured data: Each team is pulling from its own data set. Without shared data, planning accuracy takes a nosedive.
Tunnel-vision planning: Teams can’t see the end-to-end impact of their decisions. They might think they’ve made an optimal decision, but there’s no way to balance it with other business needs, so it might not benefit the company as a whole. Even if teams try to find workarounds for sharing plans, the process of handing off data is usually full of opportunities for error.

So planners are left making decisions in the dark, setting off a domino effect of costly inefficiencies, stockouts, waste, and poor availability.

Q3: “What’s the best way to demolish the silos that inhibit AI scalability?”

Mikko: You’re looking for a unified platform. Unified platforms allow businesses to make the jump from experimenting with AI to using it at every planning stage — unifying, automating, and optimizing processes to drive competitive, customer-centric growth. These platforms break down silos so companies can efficiently ensure consumers get the products they want, when they want them, via whatever channel they shop.

At RELEX, we’ve developed a unified platform that connects every level of data processing, AI refinement, and decision-making. This platform has a three-layer architecture.

A unified three-layer platform: "Diagnostics & collaboration" (featuring users with devices and analytics), "Forecasts & automated optimization" (displaying four modules: supply chain, space & assortment, pricing & promotions, and operations), and "Real-time data and AI" (computer connected to cloud storage and databases). — ***Fig. 1:*** *The RELEX platform’s three-layered architecture connects real-time data and continuously improved AI models with a suite of planning, diagnostic, and collaboration tools.*

The foundational layer combines a central data core with advanced AI models. This base layer solves the fractured data issue by bringing all those AI-driven planning functions to the same data set. Shared data means better accuracy across teams. And your data is a single point of integration, meaning it’s much easier to implement more and more planning functions since the data they need already exists in one place.

Plus, this unification creates a symbiotic relationship between the AI and the data. The AI models benefit from shared, real-time, quality data that improves calculations and outcomes. The better the calculations, the more enriched the data becomes, transforming from disconnected data points into connected insights.

The middle layer unifies forecasts, processes, and automated optimizations. It connects all your planning functions – from supply chain, space, and assortment to pricing, promotions, and store operations. Our function-specific modules aren’t just pulling from the same data pool; they’re all housed on the same platform and can easily share plans and insights with each other. The platform can automatically cross-check decisions, helping teams optimize outcomes and avoid unintended, detrimental side effects.

The top layer provides collaboration tools that put insights and gen AI into employees’ hands, at scale. One example is RELEX Diagnostics, an AI tool that analyzes data to identify improvement opportunities that might otherwise slip through the cracks between planning teams.

For instance, let’s say one of my stores is struggling with spoilage. A particular fresh product isn’t selling through, and it’s contributing to enormous waste and lost sales. At first, one might look to the supply chain team to adjust the forecast, but the real issue is that the batch size is too large for the product’s rate of sale. Once RELEX Diagnostics has identified the root cause, the merchandising team knows to negotiate a different batch size with the supplier.

With unified planning, all your teams can communicate, adjust, and execute plans – all on one platform.

Q4: “What does unified planning look like in practice? What are some use cases?”

Mikko: Let’s look at some before-and-after examples.

For instance, let’s say a promo planner is working in one of those siloed planning systems. They want to run a promotion that looks like it will be very profitable. Unknown to this planner, however, is the fact that there isn’t enough inventory to support the expected uplift. Without that critical context, the planner goes ahead and approves the proposal because it will drive a lot of sales. The demand planners find out far too late to make any inventory adjustments. Demand spikes, the product sells out, and customers are left facing empty shelves.

Now, how does this scenario play out with a unified approach? The RELEX platform has a built-in link between the promotions and demand forecasting modules.

An illustrated diagram showing the connection between supply chain and promotions teams via dotted lines. The promotions system sends data to the supply chain's dashboard, which connects back to the promotions' solution, creating a feedback loop. — ***Fig. 2:*** *In this example, the impact of a promo plan is automatically checked against the supply chain team’s data to balance uplift with available inventory.*

These systems are constantly talking to each other. So in this scenario, the promo module triggers inventory alerts based on the supply chain team’s inventory data. If the promo planner initiates the proposal, the demand planners are notified, and the two teams can work together to balance available inventory with expected uplift.

Let’s take shelving as another example. Typically, demand planners send whatever inventory a store will need for a given period all at once, but this can lead to significant shelving inefficiency. Store associates are flooded with stock as pallets and cages clog up the aisles. Managing all of this inventory eats up employees’ time and keeps them from focusing on customer service.

The RELEX unified platform solves this by integrating the Forecasting and Replenishment module with Space and Assortment so retailers can optimize shelving. It consolidates deliveries for products in the same aisles or areas and designates a specific replenishment day for each area.

A comparison of store replenishment methods: left side (red X) shows "Complete aisle-to-aisle replenishment of large variety of products" with storewide restocking routes; right side (green checkmark) shows "The use of main replenishment days" with targeted "Replenishment day 1," "day 2," and "day 5" areas. — ***Fig. 3:*** *Instead of all-at-once deliveries, the RELEX solutions staggers replenishment days, increasing store efficiency by aligning deliveries to store layouts.*

By syncing deliveries to store-specific layouts, planners can improve shelving efficiency, reduce labor costs, and improve availability for better customer experience. Plus, a balanced workload makes backroom inventory easier to manage and increases employee satisfaction.

Q5: “What measurable outcomes can retailers expect from unified planning?”

Mikko: We can trace the benefits from planning efficiency to the bottom line, but at the end of the day, it’s all about the consumer.

Starting at the planning stage, your teams are all drawing from the same well of information and easily communicating with each other to avoid working at cross-purposes. Shared data and connected decision-making help you improve your end-to-end accuracy and meet customer demand as efficiently as possible. And in an age where consumers are becoming increasingly environmentally conscious, you’re also reducing waste and improving sustainability measures.

Better accuracy and efficiency allow you to optimize costs across operations, thereby improving profitability. That profit gives you more resources to innovate and expand your business, to develop new products and explore new channels, so you can deliver an even more competitive customer experience.

The platform’s speed helps planners respond quickly to changing customer expectations, adapt to new trends, and act quickly on market opportunities to increase sales.

And when you prove time and time again that you deliver the availability, quality, and value your customers want, then you’re establishing a competitive brand reputation and a loyal customer base.

Q6: “How can retail leaders protect their tech investments from becoming obsolete? How can they ensure longevity and growth?”

Mikko: Tech longevity requires continuous innovation. And continuous innovation requires the right technology and the right partner.

The RELEX unified platform makes it easy to scale your data, your AI, and your processes.

We invest over 25% of our revenue back into R&D so we can focus on developing and improving our AI and machine learning capabilities. Plus, we have the processing power to handle and scale with the mountains of data typical of the world’s largest retail businesses – some of whom are our long-time partners. The platform is designed to easily integrate innovations so you can feel confident in the longevity of your tech investments. In fact, our supply chain AI assistant, Rebot, was the first of its kind on the market and has already answered 250,000 questions since its rollout in 2024. Our customers use it daily, and we are continuing to weave it into solutions across the platform.

What’s more, our customers have a level of ownership and control over their own solutions that allows them to adapt at unprecedented speed. Our business rules engine allows teams to configure the solution without costly, time-consuming customization projects. This configuration layer is separate from the software layer, so you can upgrade and enjoy the latest enhancements without destroying and having to rebuild the processes you’ve already set up.

Together, these capabilities power faster, better, automated decisions – at retail scale. The platform grows as your business grows.

Coupled with these capabilities, our 20 years of retail experience has resulted in consistently high customer satisfaction rates, exceeding industry-standard NPS scores. Alongside our over 500 customers, we’ve developed deployment-ready solutions and fast, field-proven processes that significantly reduce implementation risks. Our customers go live and achieve ROI faster, implementing processes that improve customer satisfaction and propel growth now and far into the future.

Discover how AI works behind the scenes and with users on the RELEX platform