Bata is a multinational footwear, apparel, and accessories manufacturer and retailer headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland. Founded in 1894, Bata operates in over 56 countries across five continents, with 19 manufacturing sites and more than 6,000 retail locations. The company sells nearly 150 million pairs of shoes annually, offering a wide product range from high-fashion to athletic and industrial footwear.
Success Story
Bata
Merchandising Planning, Assortment Planning, Demand and Replenishment Planning, Store Insights and Data Management Services
- Bata
Bata reaches 72% average in-store availability across India and Thailand with Blue Yonder
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pairs of shoes sold annually
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in-store availability for all shoes and sizes
The Company
The Business Challenge
Bata faced mounting challenges in accurately matching supply with demand across its vast network. Rapid shifts in consumer demand for footwear required more agile and precise planning processes. Legacy demand, replenishment, and merchandise planning systems lacked real-time data capabilities, making it difficult to adjust to market changes, optimize inventory turns, and protect margins. With over a million customers served daily, inefficiencies at scale risked lost sales, increased costs, and diminished customer satisfaction.
The Solution
Bata chose Blue Yonder to implement its cloud-native planning solutions, including Demand Planning, Fulfillment, Assortment, and Store Insights, supported by Blue Yonder’s Professional Services team and Blue Yonder partner Infosys for implementation. These solutions modernized Bata’s planning processes, streamlined assortment management, optimized replenishment, and delivered store-level insights to better match product distribution to local demand. The collaboration between Bata and Blue Yonder has also included significant enablement efforts, comprehensive training, and close post-launch support to ensure adoption and long-term success.
"Since implementing Blue Yonder, our in-store availability average across India and Thailand has increased to 72%, and we’ve been able to shorten product cycles, allowing us to introduce and replenish new collections more quickly.”
–Barbara Franceschetto, Chief Global Product Officer, Bata Group.
From complexity to clarity with one solution
Bata’s transformation began with the recognition that its existing systems could not keep pace with evolving consumer trends, such as increasing e-commerce purchases. The shoe retailer sought a unified, agile platform capable of integrating merchandising, assortment, demand, and replenishment planning. The first deployment targeted the India and Thailand, representing nearly a third of Bata’s global business.
The implementation was complex, with over 100 people across multiple continents collaborating. Data accuracy was a central focus, as historical inconsistencies and mismatches threatened forecast reliability. Blue Yonder partner Infosys and the Blue Yonder Professional Services team worked closely with Bata to resolve these issues, implement operational enhancements, and refine workflows to boost productivity.
Operational improvements—ranging from UI refinements to enhanced calculation logic—helped streamline assortment planning, and Blue Yonder Professional Services helped Infosys fill in knowledge gaps and establish best practices for Bata. Following go-live, the company and Blue Yonder shifted focus to stabilizing operations. This included establishing focused support groups, clear ownership structures, and regular cross-functional meetings.
Delivering operational value and results
With Blue Yonder, Bata has achieved an average of 72% in-store availability rate across Thailand and India post-implementation, ensuring customers can find the products they want when they need them. With Blue Yonder Demand, forecast accuracy has improved in India by 22% post-implementation, enabling more precise and confident decision-making across the supply chain, while conversion improvements have hit 24.7% and planning efforts have been reduced by 6%.
Blue Yonder Fulfillment and Store Insights have helped Bata match product distribution to local demand and shorten product cycles. These operational gains have delivered significant financial impact, supporting Bata’s commitment to customer satisfaction and operational excellence.
“Blue Yonder’s merchandising and supply chain planning capabilities enable us to plan customer offers, forecast demand and execute more efficient inventory strategies that lead to higher availability and shorter product life cycles. With a modern platform we’re able to access a unified view of data, streamline our processes and enhance decision-making across our network.”—Barbara Franceschetto, Chief Global Product Officer, Bata Group.
“Since implementing Blue Yonder, we’ve seen significant improvements,” points out Franceschetto. “In India, our in-store availability has increased to 72%, and we’ve been able to shorten product cycles, allowing us to introduce and replenish new collections more quickly. These early wins are just the beginning of our journey to provide the best possible offerings to our customers.”
Bata now has an optimized process that supports a faster, more responsive supply chain, driving better business decisions and a more rapid, accurate response to changes in consumer demand. Bata can effectively distribute merchandise, seamlessly produce seasonal assortment plans, and build an intelligent distribution plan over time.
“At Bata, we’re dedicated to providing quality footwear, and this collaboration with Blue Yonder aligns perfectly with our commitment to excellence. Together, we’re redefining our landscape, while setting new standards in innovation, sustainability and customer satisfaction,” says Franceschetto.
“It has been an interesting journey. We leverage Blue Yonder to explore how we’ve been working and how we could improve. With the right team and right change management in place we’ve been able to reach the results we targeted. Technically it has been a very effective collaboration with Blue Yonder. We run the solution and by suggesting better ways to integrate them, we’re making the system even stronger and more efficient,” says Francesco Verde, Director of IT Solutions, Bata Group.
Looking ahead
With a successful foundation in place, Bata plans to expand its use of Blue Yonder’s solutions globally. This includes embarking on a composable journey with Blue Yonder to explore the world of Blue Yonder’s Cognitive Solutions for Demand Planning, Merchandise Financial Planning, Allocation and Replenishment. The company views Blue Yonder not just as a technology vendor, but as a strategic partner in innovation and growth to create happy customers and improve availability.
