The way retailers and brand owners work together is changing. We recently conducted research across the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific regions with 50 retailer, brand leaders and experts surveyed. Resulting from this study are ten thoughtful predictions that we believe show where retailer, brand owner and manufacturer collaboration is heading.
Firstly, though – some context. For many years, collaboration has relied upon annual Joint Business Plans, periodic negotiations and separate decision-making across functions. While this model has delivered results, it is increasingly struggling to keep pace with faster market changes, growing customer expectations and more complex commercial environments.
Rising cost pressure, faster execution cycles, retail media growth, increasing health and sustainability demands, as well as the rapid shift of data and AI from competitive advantage to core business capability are significant drivers reshaping how retailers and manufacturers work together. Our research backs this up, with the next phase of collaboration likely to be shaped by stronger use of data, more frequent decision-making and closer alignment across commercial, operational and customer-facing teams.
The research points to three broad areas of change: how retailers and manufacturers organise themselves, how they collaborate day to day, and how they create mutual value and growth.
Why collaboration needs a reset
Historically, retailer–supplier relationships have focused heavily on annual planning, commercial negotiations and short-term delivery targets. While these activities remain important, they can make it harder to respond quickly when customer behaviour, market conditions or competitive dynamics change. Assortment, promotions, media and execution are often managed independently, reducing visibility across the wider customer and commercial picture.
At the same time, the operating environment has become more demanding. Customers – i.e. shoppers − increasingly expect relevant, joined-up experiences across physical and digital channels, while retailers and suppliers must respond to sustainability, changing lifestyle and dietary habits as well as health and regulatory requirements alongside commercial objectives.
Across a number of markets, retailers and suppliers are testing new ways of working built around more frequent planning cycles, shared data and closer cross-functional collaboration. Naturally, progress will not happen at the same pace everywhere, but the direction of travel is becoming clearer. Collaboration is becoming more frequent and more connected across functions and increasingly focused on delivering measurable outcomes rather than managing individual discussions in isolation.
Ten predictions shaping the future
Joint Business Planning becomes continuous (New cadence)
Traditional annual JBP will evolve into a dual-speed model: long-term strategic roadmaps and multi-year goals on one side, and frequent monthly or weekly data signal-led reviews and micro-replans on the other. The joint operating model becomes faster, more structured, and more productive, with stronger accountability and tighter links to execution. In maturity terms, this means moving from annual static planning toward always-on, signal-led updates and ultimately real-time joint planning ecosystems.Automated analytics and data transparency (New engine)
Routine analytical work will increasingly be automated, allowing people to focus on strategy, trade-offs, innovation, and exceptions. The real shift is not just automation, but the move from debating whose numbers are right to working from one connected source of data and one common decision backbone. The most advanced future-fit state described in the maturity assessment is a common platform with AI-led decisioning and radical transparency, where both sides are integrated into shared decision systems.Sustainability & health embedded in execution (New constraints)
Sustainability, health, and regulation will no longer sit outside commercial decision-making. They will be embedded into category architecture, media allocation, space decisions, and JBP scorecards. In the maturity model, the most advanced organisations move from isolated initiatives and compliance-led activity to joint targets, shared reporting, and ultimately co-owning execution across the value chain.From buyers to strategy orchestrator (New roles)
Retail buyers will evolve from margin defenders into multi-functional strategy conductors, orchestrating across price, promotion, assortment, retail media, supply chain, and omnichannel execution. Category captaincy will also become more open and more collaborative, shifting from single-supplier to multi-supplier co-captaincy. The maturity ladder describes this shift as a move from buyer-as-negotiator and brand-first selling to strategic partnership and, ultimately, co-captaincy with full category influence.Win‑Win‑Win mindset & more alignment (New behaviours)
The future relationship is not built on squeezing margin from one another. It is built on shared outcomes, shared accountability, and a Win–Win–Win mindset in which the retailer, the CPG, and the consumer all benefit. The maturity model shows how this develops from transactional selling and mixed incentives to structured joint goals, outcome-based agreements, and full alignment on value creation and execution.Processes become customer first, integrated and multi-functional (New ways of working)
Collaboration will increasingly span price, promotion, assortment, personalisation, media, omnichannel execution, and supply chain within one connected process. Specialist siloes will reduce as orchestration increases. The future-fit state described in the assessment is one of AI-orchestrated, fully connected decision-making, with both retailer and brand processes aligned around customer -first execution.Category management become ‘phygital’ (New framework)
Physical and digital planning will converge. Shelf, search, media, and AI-driven discovery will be planned together as part of one category system, allowing localisation, personalisation, and mission-based planning at a much more granular level. The maturity ladder shows how organisations move from store-only thinking and digital add-ons to integrated store-and-digital journeys, and eventually to fully unified ‘phygital’ ecosystems with AI-driven personalisation.Trade investment becomes productised and outcome-based (New currency)
Opaque back-margin negotiations will increasingly give way to priced, measurable, performance-linked investment packages. Investment will include media, data, execution, and services, with clearer ROI and transparent value exchange. In the maturity framework, this is the progression from trade spend negotiation and tactical funding decisions to performance-based allocation and a portfolio of outcome-based investment solutions.Retail media becomes a core merchandising lever (New accelerator)
Retail media will stop operating as a separate sales channel and become a core lever within category planning and commercial execution. Closed-loop optimisation across media, trade, and assortment will allow investment to flex based on proven performance. The future-fit maturity state describes a fully optimised engine across all levers, with media integrated into JBP and category decisions rather than managed separately.Ecosystems expand beyond traditional retailer–CPG boundaries (New frontier)
Future collaboration will extend into loyalty, fintech, health, last-mile, services, and other ecosystem partnerships. Retailers act increasingly as consumer operating systems, while CPGs participate not just as suppliers but as data, experience, and service partners. The maturity model captures this shift from bilateral relationships and limited external collaboration to multi-partner ecosystems and, ultimately, new value pools created across broader ecosystems.
Becoming future-fit
One of the most useful aspects of the framework is that it recognises collaboration as a journey rather than a fixed destination. Few organisations move from traditional ways of working to highly connected operating models overnight.
At one end of the spectrum, teams work with separate data sources, annual planning cycles and disconnected decision-making across functions. As collaboration develops, organisations begin to align on common measures, share more information and connect planning across a broader set of commercial levers.
The most advanced partnerships are characterised by shared data foundations, faster planning cycles, greater transparency and clearer accountability for performance. Technology plays an important role, but success ultimately depends on people, processes and the quality of joint decision-making.
In that sense, becoming future-ready is less about adopting new tools and more about building the capabilities and behaviours needed to work together more effectively.
What leaders should do next
Progress will require changes from both retailers and manufacturers. Retailers need to review commercial roles and processes, refresh JBP cadence, define decision rights between people and automated systems, embed health and sustainability measures into scorecards, strengthen shared data foundations, connect media and merchandising levers more effectively, focus on excellence in execution and foster ecosystems. Brand owners and manufacturers need to build greater capability in data-led recommendations and decision-making, embrace self-service platforms, participate in co-creation pilots, improve localisation and personalisation capabilities, and align with the retailers via joint growth multi-levers partnership.
For both sides, the priorities are largely the same: better visibility, clearer alignment, stronger execution and a greater focus on delivering mutual commercial outcomes.
The bottom line
The future of retailer–supplier collaboration will not be determined by technology alone. Data and AI will play an increasingly important role in improving decision-making and automating routine processes, but technology is only one part of the equation.
The organisations that succeed will be those that combine data, technology and commercial expertise to make better decisions and deliver them consistently. In an increasingly complex market, effective collaboration is becoming a source of competitive advantage in its own right.
