Retraced powers supplier lifecycle management on Oracle Autonomous Database 23ai
Retraced adds AI capabilities such as vector search and natural language queries to its AI-first infrastructure using Oracle Autonomous Database 23ai.
Germany | Software and Cloud Services
“We chose Oracle Autonomous Database 23ai because it converges all the different ways we need to access data—Select AI, vector search, spatial analysis, and more. As CTO, I can be worry-free and get everything I need from one database and one provider.”
Video: Retraced Accelerates Supplier Management with Oracle Database 26ai (1:53)
Retraced is an AI-first technology infrastructure platform for supplier lifecycle management and product operations in fashion and textiles. Built to unify sourcing, compliance, and collaboration across multitier supply chains, Retraced helps companies automate workflows, improve data quality, and respond faster to regulatory and market shifts. While the platform began by supporting sustainability reporting, it is now evolving into the system of record for supplier and product intelligence, powered by built-in AI and a secure, scalable database layer. From its earliest startup days, Retraced relied on Oracle Autonomous Database to manage its data and the global user activity on its platform. The company recently moved to Oracle Autonomous Database 23ai to take advantage of advanced AI features built directly into the database, such as AI Vector Search to help customers quickly uncover supply chain insights, and Select AI, which allows users to query data using natural language without leaving the platform.
“I believe no other solution brings AI this close to data, and data are the golden nuggets in our business.”—Peter Merkert, Chief Technology Officer and Cofounder, Retraced
Why Retraced chose Oracle
Retraced chose Oracle Autonomous Database to run its business because, as a converged database, it provided all the capabilities the company needed in one platform. CTO Peter Merkert didn’t want a scattered landscape of databases, with different databases for SQL, NoSQL, vectors, spatial data, and other formats. Recently, company leaders decided to upgrade to Oracle Autonomous Database 23ai because it would allow Retraced to quickly bring new AI capabilities to its existing data, without having to move data to a separate AI platform, such as a specialty vector database.
The migration to Oracle Autonomous Database 23ai took less than five minutes, Merkert says. The platform maintains the enterprise-grade reliability the company needs by using key features in Oracle Autonomous Database, such as autoscaling, self-patching, automatic tuning, data security, and more. It also allows for spatial analysis of geographic data, which is essential for its customers to track the location and movement of goods throughout global supply chains.
Using Oracle AI Vector Search, Retraced reduced duplicate entries of company records in its platform by 80%.
Results
Oracle Autonomous Database 23ai has two key features that convinced Retraced to upgrade: AI Vector Search and Select AI. The company wanted to represent all its data as vectors to improve the efficiency and accuracy of searches on its platform. “On a platform like ours, you don’t want to find the same company twice,” Merkert says. Such duplicates were a huge problem for the company because traditional search algorithms struggled with obstacles, such as a company being listed by its trading name and its official name, or having records in multiple languages. For example, a fashion retailer might use the Retraced platform to identify five qualified suppliers to bid on a project, only to learn that several of the records are duplicates so it actually has only two unique potential bidders. By converting all the data elements about companies into vectors, the company achieved an 80% reduction in duplicate records. “Vector search changed our lives,” Merkert says. “We had so much trouble fighting duplicates, and we just leapfrogged into a new age by being able to run AI-enabled search on our own data.”
Select AI allows for natural language text-to-SQL queries. Rather than having to write SQL code, a user can ask a conversational question about the data, generating an SQL statement that the Retraced platform uses to quickly retrieve data needed to identify trends, patterns, and business insights. Oracle Autonomous Database 23ai provides Retraced with these capabilities directly within its existing environment and architecture, eliminating the need to move data to a separate AI platform.
Retraced also kept all the capabilities it had in its previous Oracle Autonomous Database environment, including Oracle Active Data Guard to protect against downtime and data loss while providing fast disaster recovery, self-healing capabilities to automatically repair corrupted data, and autoscaling that automatically adjusts the CPU and storage for the company’s platform up and down to meet shifts in user demand and to minimize costs.
About the customer
Retraced provides the collaborative infrastructure layer for supplier lifecycle management, sourcing, compliance, and traceability, making Retraced purpose-built for the fashion and textile ecosystem. With multitier intelligence, AI-powered automation, and seamless system integrations, the brands Retraced supports can operate faster, with less friction, and greater confidence in their supply networks.