Retail Business Method & Process services offered by Atlas Retail Consultants
As a retailer you may have a variety of business objectives, perhaps you want to increase margins, reduce assortments, broaden store distribution, implement a new Merchandise Planning solution or improve your current Merchandise Planning solution? In order to ensure that your various teams collectively meet these goals, it is essential that you consider how you plan, and what is planned by who and when.
Part of the challenge is to ensure that you plan efficiently and aren’t simply introducing additional workloads onto your team. You also need to look at what is planned by who and when to ensure you get the precise information you need and in time to make key decisions. Without a clear, workable process, your planning effectiveness and your overall efficiency are reduced.
Method
The method is how you plan. A clear, well understood Planning method will enable you to operate more effectively. It will also significantly impact the value, usability and success of any Merchandise Planning solution to be implemented.
If you plan to implement a new system, software vendors often suggest they can help you before implementing their system. However the likelihood is they’ll propose the method which suits their system. This may not be the best approach, or best system, for you.
This is where Atlas’ independence is important. We’re not allied to anyone so we have no bias, we only recommend what’ll work best for you.
Specific areas we suggest you might want to address include:
- Planning Focus — Are your business decisions driven by information in Retail, Cost or Volume? Is Margin planned as part of the Re-Forecasting Process?
- Seasonality — Do you need clear visibility in the planning process of the age of stock / its seasonality?
- Grading — Are stores graded or grouped together for range and assortment decisions? What are the parameters and criteria needed, and will this satisfy your growth objectives?
- Space — Is Space planned? What is the measurement unit (eg. square, linear, options per fixture)? How is this linked to Options, Unit Buy and Stock? Will this be linked to any Visual Merchandising?
Process
Once you know how you plan, it’s critical that you define What is planned by Who and When. A clear, workable process will make improve your planning effectiveness.
Key elements of the planning process which we suggest you consider include:
- Business Calendar — The foundation upon which all planning processes are built. The primary focus of this calendar is to ensure product ranges are sourced, procured, distributed and available for sale at the right time. This should include all tasks and dependencies required to make this happen, clearly identify when they are carried out and by whom. Work effort estimates can be useful in this to identify possible resourcing bottlenecks.
- Process Flow — This maps out the tasks required and is invaluable in understanding the process.
- Process Description — For each Process Flow there should be a Process Description. This details what’s involved in completing a task, who completes it and when.
- Process Library — This should be a structured store of processes on your network. As processes evolve they should be updated.
Examples of just some of the ways we've helped clients can be found here.
Business Method |
Business Analysis |
Planning |
Package Selection
Project Management |
Supply Chain |
Store Operations |
Training Support