In 2022, the Kama Flow investment fund joined the company's capital structure. “Since our establishment in 2013, we have been experiencing robust growth, with an impressive annual rate of around 30-40%. But we realized that in order to make a significant improvement, we require a partner and investment," states Sergei Kotik, Development Director of GoodsForecast.
The funds raised were used to develop the GoodsForecast Integrated Planning Platform based on artificial intelligence and big data analytics, to implement marketing initiatives and develop the partner network. The aim was to move from selling directly to a business model based on vendors with a widespread network of capable associates. This enabled the company to concentrate on improving the quality of its products and developing the brand.
In the same year, as Western vendors left the Russian market, we presented an import substitution roadmap, allowing customers to gradually switch to fully domestic solutions for supply chain management and integrated planning.
In 2021, GoodsForecast initiated a project to design a unified platform for integrated planning. This project attracted a grant from the Russian Foundation for Development of Information Technologies to support software creation.
"The use of AI-based solutions in industry and commerce is becoming more and more relevant these days. GoodsForecast has created solutions that employ artificial intelligence and machine learning to help plan and improve the supply chain since 2004. Throughout this time, we have continuously developed our products with our own investments. The RFDIT grant will speed up the process of modernizing and combining our solutions that use cutting-edge technologies. This will also assist in solving the issue of Russian enterprises relying on imported software", — says Andrei Lisitsa, CEO, GoodsForecast.
In recent times, the company has launched many products and solutions, including those for planning optimization, promo outcomes forecasting, open data analysis, and more.
“We are working on improving our current processes. Specifically, we are developing new features that will enable us to create new products using our existing ones," Andrei Lisitsa explains. "Additionally, we are tackling the challenging needs of our customers of production optimization by properly planning the processes to meet the forecasted or existing demand while controlling costs."
As of early 2020, the company has more than 50 employees. In addition to managing, selling, and promoting, there is a team dedicated to projects, an analytics department and five sections that create, enhance, and apply software.
In 2020, our company participated in the M5 international forecasting competition. The competition consisted of two tracks: the most accurate assessment of the probability distribution of forecasts using Walmart data, in which GoodsForecast took 2nd place, and the accuracy of forecasts based on Walmart data, where the company entered the TOP 10 out of more than 5.5 thousand teams. We aimed to fairly assess our self-made mathematical models and our mathematicians' proficiency in solving business forecasting problems worldwide. As a result, it was the combination of machine learning methods and our own algorithm developed in-house that brought us success. This is a fantastic achievement, as we are the initial contenders from Russia to attain such positions.
On 2 July 2013, GoodsForecast was established and became a member of Forecsys consortium. In the same year, GoodsForecast moved to the Skolkovo IT hub. The firm had around 15 personnel at that moment. The product area configuration began to take form, and the recruitment of seasoned professionals from the industry started.
We focused on demand forecasting and inventory management. These core services laid the foundations necessary for optimization of production planning, which GoodsForecast also began to develop.
To learn more about the company's history, product development, transition to a new business model and future plans, watch this video: