Transition from Seasonal Planning to Continuous Planning

Financial, Merchandise and Assortment planning process is typically a complex process involving many people in different parts of the organization. It is also done at an aggregate level owing to the amount of data that needs to be crunched and it is error prone as there is too much of excel based analysis. Hence, the operational plan is generally disconnected with financial objectives as the underlying risks of decisions are not tied up with impact  on margins and profitability.

To overcome this, our Retail Financial Merchandise and Assortment Planning system (ReFine) carries out continuous (Pre-Season, Mid-season and in-season) planning, defining optimal product assortment plans to achieve expected revenue and margins. It also optimizes and tweaks in-season merchandise plans to adjust for variabilities. Using ReFine, key decision makers can test various budget scenarios, understand risks for those scenarios and develop a plan that offers the best returns on invested capital.

FINANCIAL MERCHANDISE PLANNING PROCESS The financial merchandise planning  considers multiple time horizon forecasting for invested capital (from pre-season to in-season planning),  covers up to 24 months forecast with scenario analysis and sensitivity analysis, maximizes margins and minimizes risks for extreme events and shortfalls on inventories.

PRODUCT MAP MANAGEMENT PROCESS

It applies factor analysis and concentration curves on sales at granular SKU level across all sales channels. It also delivers product options (size, color, design etc.) in each Merchandise Group required to support expected sales.

ASSORTMENT PLANNING PROCESS

Translation of merchandise plans to assortment plans by retail assortment management channel and point of sale is carried out to achieve forecasted sales that will support the financial plans (margins, revenue).

BUY PLAN MANAGEMENT PROCESS

Given the assortment and current & future inventory positions at the SKU levels, the defining of necessary buy plans for the various channels and Point of Sale (OTB) is ensured.

BENEFITS

• Radically streamlines financial, merchandise and assortment planning process
• Reduces planning errors using collaborative rich user experiences
• It can add to business advantage by sensing real-time changes to data and predict emerging market trends

Predict – ReFine module is designed to complement Demand Planning and Wholesale Order Management to provide you with a complete retail planning suite.