Mastering Time-Phased Order Planning

Presented By Quantum Retail Technology

Consumer retail spending is a statistic closely watched by economists because it is a significant indicator of overall economic activity. Obviously, for retailers it is a measure of the health and future prospects for their business. With retail sales and purchases on the order of magnitude of trillions of dollars, that means a huge number of customer sale transactions and a tremendous amount of merchandise movement initiated by the placement of purchase orders.

While the macro statistics are staggering, the numbers for a single retail firm are sobering as well. Hundreds of thousands or millions of buying decisions are made to match supply to demand, considering the number of metrics tracked across the combinations of products, locations, and timeframes. The objectives relate to fulfilling multiple channels of consumer demand with products at various stages in their lifecycles, including new product introductions, fashion collection launches, perishable foods, replenishable basics, and replacement models. Special events need to be supported, such as new store and distribution center openings, promotions, catalog drops, and website launches.