""

What are the core requirements of a Merchandise Planning system? - A more detailed look at what should be provided

Any software solution to support merchandise planning must be able to perform a basic set of Business Intelligence functions;

  1. Present analysis of historic performance numerically or graphically.
  2. Report by multiple dimensions, hierarchies and measures.
  3. Calculate ratios and other KPIs.
  4. Calculate opening and closing stock balances at different levels in the planning hierarchy.
  5. Support printing and reporting functionality.
  6. Permit data entry.
  7. Permit high-level targets to be pushed down to lower level members of hierarchies using allocation or spreading rules.
  8. Permit the user to lock assumptions while flexing other parts of the plan.
  9. Permit the user to plan revenue or units, prices or margins – in other words, either side of a business rule may be flexed in a given situation.

The planning process is presented as a series of views or steps, with each view being focused around a different part of the plan. In every case the planner is using history as a template to help generate forecasts, and then using data entry and the application rules to balance the plan back to the ‘hard points’ - the fixed assumptions in the plan.

In a similar way to corporate budgeting, merchandise planning works across several different scenarios. For example: -

  • Previous year history.
  • Last year history.
  • Top down strategic plan.
  • Top down category plan.
  • Bottom up category plan.
  • Top down store plan.
  • Bottom up store plan.
  • Seasonal phasing plan.
  • Cross plan (reconciliation of store x product plans).
  • Final plan (reconciliation of store x product x seasonal plans).
  • In-season re-plan.

Most of these scenarios require seeding from the previous step in the planning process. Some of them are developed using planner data entry, however the cross-plans are generated automatically by balancing the other plans and reconciling to an agreed set of targets.

Please contact us to find out more about our retail analytics and merchandise planning solution.