Sainsbury’s is to transform the management of its supply chain to improve stock availability through a five-year deal with IBM.

IBM will introduce new systems to help Sainsbury’s and its 4,000 suppliers find smarter ways of managing the supply chain and support continued growth in the grocer’s business.

Sainsbury’s will use an electronic trading network provided by Wesupply, and IBM will manage the migration of the grocer’s suppliers onto the system.

The retailer has previously suffered from problems with product availability in stores, and last year merged its supply chain and retail director roles in a move that analysts said could ease these issues.

The solution will allow Sainsbury’s to monitor the status of orders across its entire network and manage the availability of products. The Wesupply service will allow information flows to be streamlined. The grocer will also benefit from improved visibility of supply chain performance which will allow it to heighten stock control.

As part of this migration, Sainsbury’s will be transitioning its electronic data interchange (EDI) service to EDI network provider Inovis. Hundreds of Sainsbury’s suppliers are already using Inovis’ network to exchange documents with their customers.