Reinventing Demand Planning at Amway: Beauty in the Baseline

When your supply chain spans 65 markets, supports 400 points of sale, and plans over 28,000 SKUs, there’s no other option but to be precise. At Amway, a global direct-selling consumer products leader, that complexity is the daily reality. From nutrition and beauty to durable goods and home care, the company operates a vast, data-rich network that requires speed, agility, and deep collaboration across teams.

But in 2020, Amway’s global demand planning leaders saw a growing gap between their ambitions and their capabilities. Manual handoffs, fragmented signals, and slow planning cycles were introducing delays at every turn. That’s when the team decided to reimagine the future of planning, starting with demand.

This is the story of how Amway embraced connected planning to power their transformation, deploying o9’s Digital Brain to drive faster decisions, higher forecast accuracy, and a culture of continuous improvement across their global network.

Building the case for change

The vision for transformation began with a simple but essential insight: to support future growth, Amway needed to move faster and work smarter. The company’s legacy system, which was homegrown and deeply embedded, had reached its limits. From data constraints to user experience issues, it was clear the existing tools could no longer scale with the business.

Andrew Sawhill, Director of Global Demand Planning and Supply Chain Analytics, and Jessica Morel, who supports Connected Planning through Enterprise Solutions, led the effort to assess new technology options. Their goal was to support organizational agility, improve decision-making, and ultimately deliver better outcomes for customers and Amway Business Owners (ABOs).

o9 stood out for two reasons: flexibility and fit. Its ability to align with Amway’s unique global structure while introducing best practices from other industries gave the team confidence they could modernize without compromising their way of doing business.

Turning complexity into clarity

As with any large-scale transformation, the hardest part wasn’t only the technology but also the data. Moving from a custom-built legacy system to a unified platform like o9 required rigorous data cleansing and harmonization across global markets.

“Garbage in, garbage out,” said Jessica firmly. “We had to ensure the right foundation was in place to get the most from o9.”

With cross-functional support from Amway’s skilled technical and functional teams, the company undertook an intensive effort to align data across markets, business units, and use cases. These early efforts unlocked powerful conversations about hierarchy design, planning logic, and how to better connect real-time systems across the enterprise.

That clarity continues to be a competitive advantage as Amway’s planning capabilities evolve.

Measuring what matters

To track value, Amway focused on two core dimensions: efficiency and effectiveness.
Efficiency was measured by the level of system adoption and the degree of automation. Before o9, planners were spending hours manually adjusting forecasts. Now, with touchless forecasting, they’re able to spend more time on high-value tasks and let the system handle the rest. Since go-live, adoption has tripled, and monthly forecast review time has dropped from five days to under half a day.

Effectiveness focused on forecast accuracy and bias. Within months, Amway saw four- to five-point improvements in both metrics. These gains translate directly into better inventory positioning, improved service levels, and lower costs.

For the first time since the pandemic, Amway is hitting its 98% fill rate goal consistently, month after month. A milestone made possible by smarter planning, faster insights, and better data.

Forecast value add: a game-changer

One of the most impactful additions to the team’s toolkit has been Forecast Value Add (FVA), a new metric made possible by o9. FVA gives planners a lens into whether their overrides are actually improving accuracy and where further automation or refinement is possible.

“This helps us understand what’s really driving performance,” said Andrew. “When we see a pattern, we can ask: Is it the algorithm? The configuration? Or do we need to bring in a new data driver?”

This visibility is not just about tracking performance. It’s also helping Amway build a culture of continuous improvement, where planners are empowered to challenge the system, understand what’s happening, and take action.

Enabling cross-functional collaboration

Amway’s demand planning transformation didn’t happen in isolation. To succeed, the team had to engage partners across the organization, from commerce and order management to technical systems and data science.

One breakthrough came when asynchronous batch processing was introduced. This allowed the team to bring in more real-time data and ensure that planning logic reflected live business conditions. Another involved organizational design: the structure required by o9 helped accelerate long-planned changes to team responsibilities and hierarchy.

From pilot to global rollout

Amway’s first market deployment is now live, and users are becoming strong advocates of the new system. The flexibility of o9, combined with the strong partnership from the o9 team, has helped the company tackle unique challenges, tune models, and accelerate value.

The results are real: improved service levels, reduced manual effort, and increased confidence in planning decisions. But for Amway, this is only the beginning.

As they continue their global rollout, the team is also evaluating new use cases and areas for expansion, from demand sensing to broader connected planning initiatives across the supply chain. With each step, they’re learning how to unlock more value from their data, systems, and teams.

An optimistic outlook

Looking ahead, Andrew and Jessica are both positive but grounded. They recognize that tools like AI and machine learning offer exciting possibilities. But without human insight, critical thinking, and curiosity, even the best algorithms fall short.

“AI can’t do it all,” said Jessica. “We need planners who understand the context, who can ask the right questions, and who know how to use these tools to support better decisions.”
Andrew agrees: “This isn’t just about technology. It’s about people and process. And when we blend those with the right tools, that’s when we really start to see the impact.”

Amway’s demand planning journey is a case study in what’s possible when a global organization invests in planning not just as a function, but as a strategic capability. With o9, they’ve built the foundation. Now they’re scaling it, one market, one insight, one better decision at a time.

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