Research Paper: Retail Execution Management Drives The Customer Centric Store

By Paula Rosenblum, Managing Partner, Retail Systems Research

The retail ecosystem finds itself caught between a rock and a hard place in virtually every aspect of its business. Anything that touches the customer must be controlled, and yet appear effortless. While cross-departmental and cross-enterprise activities may seem invisible to the customer, a deeper look shows just how much the customer is impacted by those activities.

One would think more than twenty years after the first implementation of merchandise planning systems, the industry would have the business processes that depend on these systems down pat. Unfortunately, partly due to the physical and intellectual separation between departments, the challenge of creating a single version of merchandise planning truth remains elusive. In a 2007 survey on merchandise management issues, 100% of respondents reported "fractured planning processes" as their greatest challenge. Practically speaking, NO overarching set of procedures or technologies drive collaboration on this basic financial and merchandising function. Logistics has its plan, Store Operations has its plan, Finance has its plan, and the Merchants have their own plan. Each department has its own success metrics, even though their success remains interdependent

Customer-Centric Retail Execution

• Supplier Relationship Management
• Merchandise Operations Management
• Vendor Managed Inventory Management
• Store Operations Management
• Logistics Operations Management
• Workforce Operations Management
• Planning Operations Management