INTEGRATED & COLLABORATIVE
PLANNING SOLUTIONS
TXT Integrated
Retail Planning
process overview
Multichannel Sales & Merchandise Planning
Assortment Planning
Demand Forecasting
Allocation
Merchandise Planning has become a vital process for businesses looking to increase
profitability. As retail changes to become truly multichannel focused, retailers and brands
need to re-think their sales and merchandise processes and strategies and evolve their
supply chains to respond. By creating fast and effective plans they can find the optimal
balance between sales and inventory across all channels — maximizing sales opportunities
at each point of interaction and minimizing losses from excessive mark downs and out
of stocks.
Multichannel
Sales &
Merchandise
Planning
TXT Integrated Retail Planning provides end to end support of merchandise planning
activities. You can create strategic plans, store and category plans and ensure that they
all balance and support a common direction for the business. This ability to set a growth
target for the overall business, and then be able to validate how this can be delivered
from the store/channel portfolio as well as through the product areas helps coordinate
the buying, logistics and distribution demands with the common goals set at the start.
The seamless integration with assortment planning downstream allows for top-down and
bottom-up analysis, from clusters to stores, from categories to items, and vice versa —
as well as to automatically reconcile and reconsolidate plans meaning greater alignment
across functions and improved agility.
Key functionality
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The Benefits
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Attribute based Top-Down Bottom-Up Planning: plan and analyze with an unlimited
number of attributes;
Excel UI: leverage the power and intuitiveness of Excel as the planning experience,
and allow Pivot Tables to be manipulated and edited at all summary levels.
Visual Planning: associate images to a style or component, intuitively identify
the best combination of products and attributes to drive sales;
Advanced What-if: create and maintain multiple scenarios, identify new opportunities
around changes in product mix, potential cost reductions and effects on the bottom
line;
Role based business process workflow: design sequential, parallel, nested workflows,
improve communication and speed up process execution in global organizations;
Concurrent Planning and Performance Management: define planning KPIs that are
unique to your planning environment, explore the causes and effects to take more
effective fact-based decisions;
More profitable product mixes with a more consistent product offering and shopping
experience to the consumer across all channels;
Full understanding of the potential for each category based on the analysis of past
performance and the overall strategic direction;
Better balance between the product and store/channel needs, and control over
the Open To Buy process;
Reduced average inventory levels and less out of stocks resulting in increased sales
at full-price.
Effective Assortment Planning models the presentation of individual items to individual
sales points and therefore is the cornerstone of creating excellent customer satisfaction.
Successful localization is to be able to weigh the needs and preferences for your
customers in each of your sales channel and geographies, and create offerings that
appeal to their lifestyles and habits. But, at the same time, this has to be done within
the overall framework of your company’s growth objectives and profitability goals,
and usually requires a level of data and detail that simply isn’t achievable with
traditional spreadsheets.
This is where TXT Integrated Retail Planning thrives. It enables a business to create
a collaborative planning environment that balances strategic goals, store plans,
merchandise plans as well as individual item strengths and creates a structured,
focused planning process that delivers value to the business at each step.
Advanced visual planning techniques help validate assortment plans, ultimately improving
the customers’ buying experience and space performance. The attribute-based analysis of
slow or bestsellers puts retailers on the right track allowing assortments to be consumer
centric and dynamically re-modeled to reflect consumers changing buying patterns.
Key functionality
•
•
•
•
•
•
The Benefits
•
•
•
•
•
Native multi-dimensional attribute-based planning: plan and analyze with an limitless
number of attributes;
Excel UI: leverage the power and intuitiveness of Excel as the planning experience,
and allow Pivot Tables to be manipulated and edited at all summary levels.
Visual Planning: associate images to a style or component. Working by images or
icons, associate products to store clusters, compare product ranges at different stores,
and filter by any attribute;
Advanced What-if: create and maintain multiple scenarios, identify new opportunities
around changes in product mix, potential cost reductions and effects on the bottom
line;
Role based business process workflow: design sequential, parallel, nested workflows,
improve communication and speed up process execution in global organizations.
Concurrent Planning and Performance Management: define planning KPIs that are
unique to your planning environment, explore the causes and effects to take more
effective fact-based decisions;
Reduced Inventory – optimized stock levels, improved visibility of excess inventory,
ability to plan cleaner exit strategies for merchandise, without compromising margins
and the brand presentation;
Increased Sales –better upfront assessment of where the opportunities are;
ability to ensure maximum availability in areas of greatest sales potential;
Improved Turns –a smoother and more detailed inventory flow; optimizing
the width and depth of assortments to invest more in high producing items.
Improved Margins – increased sales at full price, by targeting the inventory in
stores and categories that have a better propensity to sell at the full retail price;
Enhanced Communication - plans shared and compared in a secure manner, and
smoother collaboration between functions.
Assortment
Planning
Demand volatility is rising and forecasting future demand across channels and geographies
is unquestionably a complex undertaking. Sales in retail and fashion are affected by factors
such as pricing, marketing strategies, seasons, trends in lifestyles to mention but a few. With
people increasingly making impulse purchases and the ensuing drive for innovation, demand
planners are faced with forecasting demand for a product with no history. In such a scenario,
conventional statistical forecasting tools are not enough.
TXT Integrated Retail Planning specific approach to forecasting, combines algorithms,
attribute based forecasting and the extensive use of patterns. The solution provides all
of the capabilities to accurately forecast NOS (never out of stock), as well as new products
based on advanced attribute-based analysis of items with similar traits. Market knowledge
is supplied by different functions and each stakeholder can view the demand plan either
by market, channels, or products for example.
Demand
Forecasting
Forecasts can be assessed against financial goals to identify potential gaps and can be
dynamically re-adjusted as and when required. Insights into demand trends can be then
translated within the tool to affect other planning activities, including merchandise and
assortment and decisions around promotions, as well as producing optimized allocation
and replenishment plans.
A predefined framework of correlated metrics (KPIs) and what-if simulations allow users
to manage their plan and concurrently verify the effects of applying various forecasting
strategies on the production, stock profiles and costs to always choose the best tradeoffs.
Key functionality
•
•
•
•
•
The Benefits
•
•
•
•
Native multi-dimensional attribute-based forecasting, by an unlimited number
of attributes;
Advanced What-if: powerful scenarios and calculations with only a few clicks of
the mouse;
Role based business process workflow: the right people access the right data at
the right time. Multiple, complex workflows are supported;
Excel Planning Client: Data in pivot tables can be edited and written back to the
OLAP database making forecast consolidation a much faster task;
Offline capabilities
Increased Sales: better forecast accuracy ensures you can make sure the inventory
is in the right place in readiness for the predicted sales peaks.
Reduced Markdowns: Improved visibility to the projected lifecycle of items, you
can decide on how long to hold off applying markdowns to maximize full price
opportunities.
Improved Collaboration: through the sharing of the single forecast with multiple
stakeholders; allocation, merchandising, planning and even vendors.
More Reliable Forecasts: by automatically selecting the type of algorithms to run,
and then running multiple forecasts concurrently before selecting the best fit, the
individual users don’t need to be forecasting experts.
“Get the right product to the right place at the right time and at the right price”
It’s a simple concept for everyone to understand but for the modern multi-channel, multifaceted retailer, it’s unquestionably a daunting task. Allocation is the time where your vision
for the products, the intelligence on your locations and their strengths, and your knowledge
of current and expected performance all come together in a single decision — what do I send
to each store today?
TXT Integrated Retail Planning supports allocation at DC and/ or store level for each item,
recommending the optimal timing and quantities to be allocated. The solution balances
the inputs and strategic direction coming from assortment planning with new trends and
goals. With updated SKU/Store/Day information the solution also has continual access
to extremely detailed availability and performance data to ensure the recommendations
account for the most current situation.
By combining multiple perspectives, TXT Integrated Retail Planning can provide a
series of optimized allocation recommendations to make sure the vision and creativity
of the presentation remains solid in each location, and the locations with outstanding
performance are always kept vibrant with fresh merchandise.
Store specific considerations can be included in each of the calculations, to ensure
new or renovated stores are appropriately covered in the allocations.
Key functionality
•
•
•
•
•
The Benefits
•
•
•
•
•
Native multi-dimensional attribute-based planning: plan and analyze with an
unlimited number of attributes;
Excel UI: leverage the power and intuitiveness of Excel as the planning experience,
and allow Pivot Tables to be manipulated and edited at all summary levels.
Advanced What-if: run extremely powerful scenarios and calculations with only
a few clicks of the mouse;
Role based business process workflow: design sequential, parallel, nested workflows,
improve communication and speed up process execution in global organizations.
Concurrent Planning and Performance Management: define planning KPIs that are
unique to your planning environment, explore the causes and effects to take more
effective fact-based decisions;
Increased Sales –ability to respond to daily sales and inventory patterns for each SKU,
identify stores that are performing well and need to be fed with additional stock to
maximize sales;
Higher Margins – improved sales at full retail price. By avoiding the need for
markdowns to clear redundant inventory, more reward for the same initial investment;
Increased Customer Satisfaction – Improved product availability resulting in happier
customers, and in turn greater sales;
Reduced Store Transfer Costs –products allocated in their preferred size curve,
meaning the stores can spend less time shipping and more time selling;
Preserve Brand Presentation –users get a broad view of how the whole assortment
is being distributed, this allows constant alignment with corporate brand strategies.
Allocation
TXT Integrated Retail Planning
Retail is a very competitive industry that depends
on long and collaborative processes being done
well and a huge amount of numbers and variables
being analyzed to make the right decisions. In
this scenario, the missing piece for many retail
organizations has often been the ability to integrate
different « islands of planning » integrating data
and processes whilst supporting decision with
advanced analysis and simulation.
About Us
TXT MAPLE LAKE is a leading provider of integrated and collaborative
planning solutions for the Retail and Fashion sectors. Its proven expertise
in Merchandise and Assortment Planning, Allocation, Product Lifecycle
Management (PLM), Demand Forecasting & Replenishment contribute
to maximizing sales and profitability for retailers and fashion brands
worldwide.
TXT e-solutions acquired Maple Lake in September 2012,
extending its global reach and further expanding its practice
in integrated retail planning. The company has approximately
500 employees and more than 450 customers worldwide.
TXT is based in Milan and has branches in Italy, France, Spain,
Germany, United Kingdom, North America and Australia.
The company has always invested in technology and in
business processes innovation, making this a cornerstone
on which to build its success.
TXT helps global retailers succeed in today’s
dynamic and multichannel retail environment,
providing powerful Integrated Retail Planning
in one solution.
Integration spans across channels, products,
functions, time horizons, and all critical Retail
processes: from sales planning across channels,
merchandise and assortment planning, down to
forecasting, initial allocation, replenishment and
markdown planning.
TXT Product Lifecycle Management
Need to speed up collection development but
fragmented information and chaotic workflows
are causing delays? Exchanging spreadsheets
with global suppliers generates misunderstandings
around the product? Merchandise Planning and
the creative perspectives are reconciled too late
in the process producing a lot of rework, sampling
proliferation and ultimately high product
development costs?
With TXT PLM Fashion & Retail companies align
all stakeholders from Merchandisers to Designers,
Product Managers, Developers, Buyers and
Suppliers behind the same perception of the
line, products, materials, calendars, business and
strategic goals.
Its unique value sits in the ability to extend core
PLM capabilities such as Creative design, Collection
Development and Costing not only to Supplier
collaboration and Sourcing but seamlessly to
Merchandise Planning.
One unified view from design to rack, faster
decision making and slashed concept to cash
cycles are among the benefits our customers
have achieved.
TXT Supplier Relationship Management
Customers’ demand for increased agility, price
pressures, and the trend towards globalization
mean new challenges to companies. In such
a complex scenario, developing a responsive
partner base, establishing a common frame to
enable communication and committing to a
strategic relationship with partners is absolutely
crucial. Forward thinking companies are well
aware of this and work to leverage the enormous
potential that lies in Supplier Collaboration.
With TXT, organizations are able to manage all
aspects of SRM in one single web environment:
sourcing and contract negotiation, procurement
and order management, logistics and quality
control including event and performance
management.
As such the supply ecosystem evolves to achieve
win-win relationships and joint value.
TXT Sales & Operations Planning
Have you taken some steps in S&OP already
but don’t know how to move to the next maturity
level?
Are you struggling to determine the impact
S&OP has on your bottom line?
Would like to include Financial Planning?
Or, quite simply, are you about to start the
S&OP journey?
Whatever your currentl level of maturity is; from
the early stages, up to the most sophisticated
Integrated Business Planning (IBP) approach, TXT
can support your end-to-end S&OP requirements,
grow with the process and with your Business.
With TXT S&OP, business plans translate into the
most profitable supply and demand views; S&OP
decisions are completely aligned with
the financial perspective.
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INTEGRATED & COLLABORATIVE
PLANNING SOLUTIONS
INTEGRATED & COLLABORATIVE
PLANNING SOLUTIONS
www.txtgroup.com • marketing@txtgroup.com
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