Blue Yonder Announces Winners of 2026 ICONic Customer Awards
Blue Yonder Announces Winners of 2026 ICONic Customer Awards
DALLAS & SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Blue Yonder, the AI company for supply chain, today recognized the most innovative supply chain companies with the ICONic Customer Awards at the annual Blue Yonder ICON conference.
The ICONic Customer Awards honor customers that are driving digital transformations of their supply chains and delivering measurable impact through exceptional use of Blue Yonder solutions. These organizations are leading with innovation and turning transformation into business results across areas such as customer experience, cost, forecast accuracy, labor, and sustainability.
“We are proud to celebrate this year’s winners and the impact they are delivering through their use of Blue Yonder solutions,” said Brittany Easley, chief customer officer, Blue Yonder. “These customers are embracing transformation while propelling their businesses forward. We are grateful to partner with them and congratulate them on this recognition.”
The winners of the 2026 ICONic Customer Awards are:
The Trendsetter: Linfox
- This award honors a pioneering leader who has successfully leveraged Blue Yonder solutions to introduce transformative innovations, improving processes, efficiency and product quality. The winner demonstrates exceptional creativity and progress, setting new industry benchmarks and driving significant advancements in their industry.
- Why they won: Linfox moved beyond a collection of bespoke solutions to establish a stable, reusable digital platform through its Digital Freight Network and Blue Yonder Transportation Management. Today, the platform processes 50,000-60,000 integration messages per day and enables new customers to be onboarded in as little as 3-5 business days, down from several weeks previously. More than 2,500 supplier accounts are actively enabled through the customer portal, allowing suppliers to self serve booking and track and trace freight. This combination of enterprise grade reliability, rapid onboarding, and high-volume orchestration has set a new benchmark for operating logistics networks at scale.
The Groundbreaker: Under Armour
- This award honors a company that has leveraged Blue Yonder solutions to break new ground in their industry by challenging the status quo and pushing boundaries. The winner’s groundbreaking approach to utilizing technology sets new standards for operational efficiency and inspires transformative change.
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Why they won: Under Armour is undertaking a multi-year transformation to modernize its end-to-end planning capabilities amid significant operational pressure, with a clear objective to optimize planning across all functions on a single, global foundation. Partnering with Blue Yonder across Demand, Fulfillment, Supply Planning and Merchandise Financial Planning, the team worked to improve planning accuracy, protect consumer needs, and manage inventory more effectively across regions, channels and stores. The transformation is set to deliver more disciplined, demand signal-driven forecasting, resulting in lower inventory, improved visibility and a stronger global planning foundation.
With this strong foundation in place, Under Armour is poised to leverage AI as an objectively informed collaborator, augmenting planners with deeper insights, highlighting risks and opportunities, and progressively automating elements of the planning process.
The Dynamic Operator: FedEx
- This award recognizes a company that demonstrates exceptional agility and adaptability in their operations by swiftly responding to market demands through the strategic use of Blue Yonder solutions. The winner has adopted dynamic strategies that drive sustained growth and competitive advantage, setting a standard for operational excellence.
- Why they won: FedEx focused on establishing clear metrics to measure success, such as increased efficiency, cost savings and improved customer satisfaction scores. Through real-time data access, improved reporting and streamlined operations, the company strengthened its ability to respond more effectively to changing demands. The impact included higher retention rates and reduced labor costs, driven by improved satisfaction and a more agile operating model for managers and their teams.
The Game-Changer: Hewlett Packard Enterprise
- This award celebrates the company that has best leveraged Blue Yonder solutions to drive their future business and meet the changing demands of their customers. The winner has embraced the power of technology to transform their operations, resulting in improved efficiency, customer centricity and profitability.
- Why they won: Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) advanced a Chain of Custody initiative designed to improve traceability across critical nodes of its supply chain. With Blue Yonder Chain of Custody, the effort created end-to-end, near real-time visibility across inbound and outbound flows and enabled stronger provenance reporting for onboarded data. In turn, HPE gained broader traceability coverage and faster, smarter, and more predictable supply chain decisions.
The Game-Changer: Conagra Brands
- Why they won: Conagra Brands set out to reimagine supply chain planning as a modern, automated, high-trust ecosystem built on Blue Yonder, enabling the organization to respond faster to customers, optimize inventory and prepare for next-generation agentic AI capabilities. By scaling Blue Yonder Inventory Optimization and reducing supply planning cycle time from two weeks to less than a week, Conagra Brands improved agility, service and financial performance. The transformation is delivering 80% touchless inventory optimization, 90% touchless production planning, 98% service levels, a 7.4% improvement in case fill rate, and a 13% inventory value reduction.
The Accelerator: Zabka Polska
- The winner of this award has utilized Blue Yonder solutions to accelerate its transformation to meet the evolving needs of its business and customers. This winner exemplifies innovative thinking, sets new standards and inspires excellence within their industry.
- Why they won: Zabka Polska set out to reimagine personalized retail at scale while supporting the rapid expansion of more than 1,300 new stores every year in Poland and Romania. With Blue Yonder, the company moved from a one-size-fits-all model to full hyper-personalization, generating store-specific planograms automatically and feeding AI-powered data models with store-level inputs to optimize layout and assortment for each location. The result is a model capable of producing hundreds of thousands of planograms annually while supporting rapid national expansion without increasing operational complexity.
The Accelerator: Compañía Cervecerías Unidas
- Why they won: Compañía Cervecerías Unidas set out to transform its logistics operations to make them more efficient and competitive at both the local and regional levels. Through a SaaS-based roadmap built on Blue Yonder Warehouse Management, the company accelerated from a historical pace of two implementations per year to a rigorous target of over four per year for the next six years, while reengineering every legacy system integration to synchronize with Blue Yonder’s Platform Data Cloud. Guided by a process-oriented approach, cutting-edge technology and a people-first focus, the transformation is streamlining processes and empowering the workforce at scale.
The Visionary Connector: Knauf
- This award celebrates a company that excels in fostering collaboration and connectivity through seamless integration using Blue Yonder solutions. The winner’s visionary approach to connectivity demonstrates what is possible with next-generation cognitive supply chains powered by cutting-edge AI and a unified data cloud.
- Why they won: Knauf is working toward a fully automated and connected end-to-end supply chain by 2032, with targets of 80% touchless orders and being the easiest to do business with. Leveraging Blue Yonder’s Cognitive Solutions for Planning—Integrated Business Planning and Demand & Supply Planning—to create a touchless flow, the company is focused on management by exceptions and breaking silos between demand and supply, order management and scheduling for their supply chain. With a global go-live of Demand Planning underway and the blueprint for DSP and IBP progressing, Knauf is already driving transparency and service-level improvements for its customers.
The Eco-Leader: Novolex
- The winner of this award is leading the charge toward a more sustainable future. The winner has woven sustainability into their operations using Blue Yonder solutions to drive sustainable practices throughout their supply chain, resulting in reduced waste, improved energy efficiency and a lower carbon footprint. Their commitment to sustainability sets a high bar for the industry and serves as an inspiration for others.
- Why they won: Novolex set out to build a digitally enabled, sustainability-driven supply chain with end-to-end visibility and smarter decision-making across one of the packaging industry’s most complex manufacturing and distribution networks. Using Blue Yonder’s unified platform, including Demand Planning, Supply Chain Planning, Sequencing, Order Promising, Warehouse Management, and Transportation Management, Novolex transformed its operations. It improved forecast accuracy by approximately 12%, reduced overproduction, decreased finished goods inventory by 15-20%, optimized transportation routes to reduce miles by 15-20%, and increased warehouse throughput by 20-25%. These operational gains also supported Novolex’s broader sustainability progress, contributing to a 50% reduction in global Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions since 2019.
The Innovator: PepsiCo
- This award recognizes the company that has successfully leveraged Blue Yonder solutions to drive innovation and transformation in their operations. By embracing advanced technologies, the winner has enhanced supply chain efficiency, improved service delivery and optimized logistics processes. The winner demonstrates how digital innovation can revolutionize their industry and inspire excellence across the sector.
- Why they won: PepsiCo initiated a digital transformation aimed at creating a fully integrated supply chain ecosystem in response to fluctuating demand, supply chain disruptions, rising freight costs, unpredictable carriers, and limited data transparency. The company created a fully integrated supply chain ecosystem and established the Blue Yonder Network as a foundation for a more sophisticated, coordinated supply chain. That has helped PepsiCo collaborate with suppliers, carriers and customers to support end-to-end supply chain processes and visibility from the customer shelf to the farmer.
The Trailblazer: Crate & Barrel
- This award recognizes a forward-thinking organization that is blazing a trail of innovation by harnessing the latest Blue Yonder solutions and cloud technologies. It celebrates pioneers who not only optimize operations with Blue Yonder solutions but also set a benchmark for industry-wide collaboration, inspiring others to embrace a unified vision for success.
- Why they won: In September 2023, Crate & Barrel launched Bring It Home, a multi‑year strategy to improve inventory optimization, demand forecasting and delivery speed through AI and automation. Together with Blue Yonder, they are modernizing end‑to‑end fulfillment and sourcing, with a strong focus on Omnichannel Order Promising & Optimization. The initiative reduced peak‑season backorders, improved online conversion through more reliable inventory availability, and increased fulfillment efficiency across distribution centers and stores. What began as a response to peak constraints has evolved into a unified, predictive planning and execution platform that enables smarter decisions, faster operations and sustainable digital growth—delivering greater reliability, personalization and a seamless customer experience.
Top Advocate: Nik Haggerty, VP of Transformation, Chalhoub Group
- This award recognizes an individual for their exceptional dedication and unwavering commitment to advocating for our customers. They consistently go above and beyond to provide references and success stories, building meaningful relationships that make a lasting impact. Through their expertise and passion for advocacy, they have set a shining example and truly enriched the customer experience.
- Why he won: Nik Haggerty has been a strong advocate for Blue Yonder and a positive champion in the market. In 2025, he spoke on Blue Yonder’s behalf at multiple events and supported the company through numerous reference calls, helping share practical insights with peers and customers. His ongoing engagement and willingness to support Blue Yonder’s solutions make him a trusted voice and valued advocate.
About Blue Yonder
Blue Yonder is the AI company for supply chain. As the world leader in end-to-end digital supply chain transformation, Blue Yonder offers a unified, AI-driven platform and multi-tier network that empowers businesses to operate sustainably, scale profitably, and delight their customers—all at machine speed. A pioneer in applying AI solutions to the most complicated supply chain challenges, Blue Yonder’s modern innovations and unmatched industry expertise help more than 3,000 retailers, manufacturers, and logistics service providers confidently navigate supply chain complexity and disruption. blueyonder.com
“Blue Yonder” is a trademark or registered trademark of Blue Yonder Group, Inc. Any trade, product or service name referenced in this document using the name “Blue Yonder” is a trademark and/or property of Blue Yonder Group, Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks of the companies with which they are associated.
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