C&S project to harness artificial intelligence, machine learning

C&S Wholesale Grocers Inc. is looking to build a new operations platform on Google Cloud to reduce the company’s carbon footprint and enhance the customer experience.

C&S has partnered with Tata Consultancy Services to reimagine its operations platforms, including customer experience and grocery distribution. TCS will lead the company-wide project and help C&S establish a new cloud-based architecture that will unify its current systems. Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, C&S’s new operations platform will monitor traffic patterns and identify optimal distribution routes, thereby reducing food waste and achieving greater fuel efficiency.  

The new Google Cloud platform will help C&S streamline its operations by providing the infrastructure flexibility to support the company’s sustainability initiatives and growth strategy. TCS will help reduce C&S’s carbon footprint by migrating its data center workloads to the carbon-neutral infrastructure of Google Cloud.

The new cloud-based, predictive platform will help C&S provide best-in-class tools and capabilities to its employees to achieve operational excellence and growth ― much of which is made possible by bringing self-service solutions to IT and customer service touchpoints. The deployment also will offer C&S the scalability needed to drive long-term business growth.

“With more than 104 years in the rapidly changing grocery industry, the foundation of C&S’s success has been our ability to adapt and innovate ahead of market trends to better serve our customers. It’s this legacy that drives our unrelenting focus on innovative go-to-market strategies and customer service,” said Bob Palmer, CEO of C&S Wholesale Grocers Inc. “We like to challenge the status quo and need partners who can do the same. Both TCS and Google Cloud are making it possible to implement a platform that supports our operational sustainability goals to ensure a healthy planet now and for future generations.”

“Our collaboration with TCS and Google Cloud will accelerate C&S’s digital transformation strategy,” said Sudhakar Lingineni, chief information officer of C&S Wholesale Grocers Inc. “It will help build new and support current critical business applications with resilience, scalability, and flexibility to drive innovation and growth while ensuring business continuity. Our investments in technology demonstrate our commitment to delivering greater value to our customers and partners when they need it most. Big Query, AI, and ML will help tackle the large and complex data challenges unique to our business.”