Retailers : how modern planning platforms may help scale your business

At FutureWise, we have been supporting brands in modernizing their planning processes for a solid 15 years.

We'd like to share a few firsthand experiences regarding the contributions of modern business planning platforms (meaning : cloud powerful modeling platforms with user-friendly interfaces).

Connected planning in fashion and luxury: a game-changer

The adoption of connected planning in the fashion and luxury industry has taken a massive leap forward in just 5 short years.

We're talking about a wide range of use cases : from merchandise planning to supply chain optimization, from financial planning to manufacturing.

Today, even highly crucial and operationally focused processes like distribution are integrated into planning solutions.

Simply put, if you see a product on the shelves, it's very probable a modern planning platform has crunched the numbers, optimized transportation costs, and recommended it be shipped to that exact spot.

The result? Big wins in terms of sell-out, On-Shelf Availability (OSA), and bottom-line savings.

An integrated value chain and planning processes synced at 100%

The usage scenarios are broad, encompassing most planning processes, from strategic to operational levels, facilitating collaboration among teams in Merchandising, Finance, and Supply Chain.

Merchandising: a seamless journey from sales plans to in-season

For merchandising teams, it means a smooth journey, from gearing up for upcoming seasons to dynamically fine-tuning the assortment of current collection.

Easily securing processes often managed with Excel :

Sales plans, buy plans, margin targets for upcoming seasons and collections
Range plans
Pricing : automating the calculation of local price lists in currencies based on base 100 prices and benchmarking pricing position with competitor offerings
Assortment planning : store clustering, product grading, product life cycles and seasonality curves, determination of optimal assortment
Buying sessions and buy quantification
Determination of optimal store setups and replenishment quantities by size
Assortment analysis and optimization
Markdowns

Many of these use cases represent real quick wins— easy to roll out and warmly welcomed by teams.

Supply Chain: synchronized and optimized stock

For supply chain teams, the central focus remains on distribution and the ability to ensure the right products are available in the right place at the right time.

To achieve this, business planning platforms provide a comprehensive and efficient framework:

Product lifecycle and status management, considering EOL and stock constraints
Statistical forecasting for permanent items
Sales profiles for seasonal items
Prioritization logic
Fully automating replenishment calculation and optimization
Managing emergency situations: temporary store closures, delays in deliveries to central warehouse
Stock rebalancing and store-to-store transfers

These projects also yield measurable gains : 30% reduction in stockouts, +20% improvement in sell-through, +2% increase in sell-out (from "real-life" scenarios).

Finance: all processes aligned with your financial plans

Finance stands to gain significantly by integrating its FP&A framework with the tools used in merchandising and supply chain operations. This integration allows for a correlation between financial performance and business drivers in sales, supply, production.

Planning areas usually in scope to Improve controllers' efficiency and simulate quicly scenarios :

Core P&L Planning & consolidation
Balance Sheet & Cash Flow Planning
Top down sales planning (per channels, categories, countries)
COGS planning and stock equations
Stock depreciation and inventory
Departmental Planning (e.g. IT planning)
A&P : media, events, shows
Allocations per cost centers
CAPEX planning
Workforce planning (payroll, headcount)

The latest generation of Planning Platforms has completely changed the game

Of course, using technology to streamline and make planning processes more adaptable in the value chain of retailers isn't entirely new.

A decade back, we were already collaborating with a prestigious brand on Rue Cambon, using IBM Cognos TM1 to recommend jewelry piece allocations to boutiques based on powerful and flexible prioritization rules.

But now, simpler and more potent solutions have made business planning widely accessible across the sector to replace Excel and overly rigid tools.

Modeling Flexibility: flexible modeling capabilities, allowing for the creation of customized models to address the specific needs of each brand
Automation of part of the process from data collection to complex calculations
On-the-fly simulations and scenarios
Maximizing collaboration between your teams, managing assortment localization

Do you still use Excel for your retail planning? Shall we discuss it?