“The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” *Robert Burns, “To a Mouse,” 1785
Every season the pattern starts a new: financial plans must be converted to product assortment plans. In turn, assortment plans are refined to vendor plans in anticipation of going to market. Once there, regardless of the care and precision with which an assortment plan is crafted, the vagaries of product offerings, negotiating with vendors, balancing and re-balancing assortments all wreak havoc on even the most carefully prepared plans.
In market, quick decisions must be made. Time to re-cast plans is minimal. Once back in the office, the re-planning process starts. Too often this is an Excel spreadsheet-based process (read: mess). The buy must be re-balanced by vendor and class; ensure coverage by store and presentation by silhouette, color, size, style, and 30 other attributes. Receipts must be balanced to plan. Inventories must achieve desired turns while sales and margins are preserved. Order quantities needed by store SKU are the output of this process, but this output is disconnected and separated from the purchase order and fulfillment systems. Meanwhile, commitments and orders need to be timely lest the ordering window is taken by others.
The need is to unify the planning, in-market buying, and purchase order management into a seamless flow. End-to-end coverage from assortment needs through finalized offers that provide a clear and simple way to flex the plan to market finds while providing the guidance to stay within plan and keep the financials balanced allowing a focus on the buying of the best assortments.
Meeting this need is the In-Market Order Commitment Solution. The In-Market solution is part of a unified process of assortment planning, in-market order commitment and purchase order management. By fusing these three solutions together the result is a synergy of automation, analysis, and connectedness.
Connected Insights
Armed with assortment plans, the market experience is optimized by being able to record order commitments and possibly buy extensions immediately into a fast user-friendly simple interface. However, this simple step extends back into the assortment plan, updating quantities and commitments against plan objectives instantly. No more plan re-rebalancing and each commitment immediately shows against the plan.
Commitments re-shape the plan but with full assortment planning analytics, the plan is kept in optimal balance by recasting of forecasts for new commitments, re-balancing of critical performance measures and the inclusion of store clustering as well as downstream replenishment and fulfillment criteria.
No more re-keying is required for market commitments to flow into purchase orders. As placeholder products become next season style and order quantities get balanced to store and channel order flow, the purchase order plan is built organically. Order quantities are broken into optimized receipt flow and balanced to distribution chain needs. Purchase orders once complete quickly flow to vendors automatically.
All of this while allowing the best in market experience for merchants to practice the fine art of product selection rather than be chained to excel spreadsheet updates. Visual buy planning allows the construction of digital assets and images to build immediate virtual collections and display allowing confidence in store assortments and customer appeal. Brand consistency is easily maintained by allowing real-time collaboration with your vendor partners as you build winning assortments.
Why can we do this? The ONE™ platform, of course. This is but one example of the power of a truly connected retail solution. By leveraging the common backbone of data, analytics, reporting, and workflow, solutions do not have to be integrated – they are naturally grown from the same base. Data is shared. One source of the truth. Insights are surfaced effortlessly. Changes flow across solutions automatically. Plans stay synchronized and in-season activities such as pricing and promotions all work to support plan objectives.
If you’re ready to streamline your planning and buying processes, eliminate inefficiencies, and leverage the power of a truly connected retail solution, reach out to Digital Wave Technology today. Discover how our ONE™ platform can transform the way you manage assortments, in-market buying, and purchase order management, ensuring your business stays agile and profitable. Let’s explore how we can help you optimize your operations and achieve your business goals.