Archive for January, 2010

RSR Report Says CEO’s Must Take the Lead in Driving Inventory Optimization Decisions

by Dave Landreth • January 27th, 2010 • Write a comment »

From the Retail Systems Research (RSR) report: Precision Inventory Management in the Age of Localization

This RSR report shows that the most successful retailers today have been lead by CEO’s that acknowledge the need to change the way they have previously approached retail. The quickest returns on investment for retailers are the addition of smart technology, solutions that optimize their supply chains, SKUs, store level assortments, products, pricing and markdowns.

Leading retailers embrace strategic changes to their business as a competitive advantage, while laggards wait to make changes until they become mainstream, losing valuable shoppers and shareholders in the process.

The most important decision makers

Organizational Inhibitors

The report states:

“While existing technology infrastructure is the primary internal obstacle, according to survey respondents, the most important tool for overcoming obstacles rests on the shoulders of the executive team. But key differences emerge between winning retailers and their Lagging peers ‐ Winners have rested inventory responsibility squarely on the executives with the most organizational pull, mainly the CEO and CFO, while laggards rely much more on the lead supply chain executive, without the all‐important support from merchandising.“

Looking to Progressive Retailers as merit

First and foremost for progressive executive teams is the realization that CEO’s need to be responsible for a strategy to get their business processes up to the pace of today’s retail environment. RIS news predicts that retail sales will only bounce back by 2.5% in 2010. If executive leaders want to catch up with the few innovative and successful retailers that are gaining speed, despite the tumultuous economy, they need to accept that changes in their business processes are necessary.

Listen to Guitar Center discuss how they adapted to their business challenges HERE »

Top challenges now and moving forward

Consumer buying patterns today have become more unpredictable than ever, making past retail data and current forecasts irrelevant. This means that retailers need to have an intelligent way to understand shopper demand at a store, category and product level.

Some retailers seem to have given up with the belief that there is no better way than how they have been steering their business for the past 20 years, but those that acknowledge the challenges brought up by RSR will seek out the right solutions to create new business strategies and adopt better technologies.

Top Business Challenges and the most relevant technology to face them

Be a leader, not a laggard. Compete for your shoppers, shareholders and employees and catch up to the pace of today’s top retailers.

Download this blog as a PDF

Download the Retail Systems Research Report HERE »

Get resources on how to adapt to the challenges of today’s retail market HERE »

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5 tips for developing a real-time response plan for customer behavior

by Greg Wilson • January 22nd, 2010 • Write a comment »

By Greg Wilson, Director of Field Strategy, Quantum Retail

1. Set objectives –

Each product should have a role with specific objectives that can be measured and executed to. A product may be in your assortment to drive traffic, to generate profitability, to present an image or to opportunistically acquire impulse sales. Each of these roles come with unique objectives that can result in different inventory requirements.

2. Shift focus –

While forecast accuracy is important, it is not the only way to improve inventory placement. If you are adjusting forecasts to achieve different inventory results, you’re already reacting to this fact. Shift focus to finding the best way to utilize inventory to achieve goals while understanding forecast accuracy and variability are realities.

3. Waste not –

Get a deeper understanding of the impact of waste on your inventory decisions and act on it. Depending on margin, it may be more profitable to accept additional waste on some products, while other products would be better served accepting an occasional lost sale.

4. Get local –

There is no substitute for understanding product behavior at local levels. There are many ways to improve this understanding but consider those which have the most impact including:

Seasonality - If you’re working to static, periodically generated seasonality profiles, you have a great opportunity for improvement.

Time of day – Did you stock out? When? What did that mean in missed opportunities for sales? Can you replenish again today? The more detail you have in answering these questions the more efficient you can make your inventory – especially for short life, short lead time merchandise.

Day of week – Does this location have a weekend traffic boost? Does that product respond to the pattern? Understand these interactions invariably leads to better performance.

Weather impact - Does this product react differently on cold days or wet days? What does that mean to demand? And how should that affect how stores are supplied? If I can ship it tomorrow and I know it’s going to be hot, what’s the right decision? We all know these realities exist, but have you been able to execute to the reality?

5. Revisit and rationalize –

Product behavior constantly changes with the changing consumer. The item that fulfilled it’s role last year or last quarter may not be doing so now. You need to be alerted to situations where this change is happening, and have a mechanism to understand and react to the way that impacts your offerings to customers.

Download this blog as a PDF

For more information on customer behavior – check out our RESOURCE LIBRARY.

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Happy Birthday to Q!

by Quantum Retail • January 19th, 2010 • 1 Comment »

Quantum Retail turns 6 today.

Just six years ago today, six retail and technology experts came together and founded Quantum Retail Technology, Inc. They believed that the retail industry was being both underserved and dis-served by the existing technology and software solutions industry.


MINNEAPOLIS, MN - January 19, 2010 – The founders of Quantum Retail understood that in today’s unpredictable market, retailers face significant challenges in addressing the increasing complexity of their business, their desire to achieve greater productivity and profitability from their inventory, their need to deliver on their customer brand promise in a volatile market, and the need to do it in an easy to use, intuitive solution that was not disruptive to their existing people and processes.

Unlike existing technology filling this market, Quantum Retail created the system, called Q, from the ground up to be self-improving, easy-to-use, address end-to-end business issues, and deliver unprecedented value, quickly and permanently.

By focusing on creating measurable and material value for retailers through business goals and strategies that allow retailers to accurately place every piece of inventory in their chain, Quantum Retail has changed the fundamental way technology solutions are perceived, purchased and deployed for rapid Return on Investment (ROI).

Q: The next generation in retail

Six years later, Quantum Retail has grown to 50 employees and been recognized for Supply Chain Solution of the Year, Supply Chain Excellence, and ranked as the eleventh fastest growing private software company in the nation with 964.3% growth in the past three years.

Quantum Retail’s goal is to serve world class retailers with twenty-first century solutions that maximize return on investment (ROI) of their inventory while enhancing their brand in the marketplace. Ultimately, we define our success through our customer’s eyes. Thus, our mission is to maximize the value we deliver to our clients through our solutions and services in the shortest period of time.

Read the full company story here: http://quantumretail.com/our-company/our-story

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NRF 2010 update: Engagement learning sessions with tier 1 retailers

by Quantum Retail • January 11th, 2010 • Write a comment »

Blogging live from the show floor

Quantum Retail meets with tier 1 retailers at NRF’s Annual Convention & Expo 2010 – for educational sessions about how Q’s system utilizes localization and strategic business practices to bring their assortment and range planning, forecasting, order planning, allocation and replenishment efforts up to the pace of today’s retail.

NEW YORK, NY – January 11, 2010 – Photos cannot even capture how massive this convention is. At Quantum Retail’s booth, there are as many as seven meetings happening at once with tier 1 retailers. Competing with the irksome noise of JDA’s performance stage as it thunders in the background, Quantum Retail has been filling our meeting lounge, demo stations and conference room with retailers seeking a little insight into Quantum’s innovative solutions.

The way Quantum Retail approaches retailing is new to many retailers. While taking today’s rapidly changing retail market into perspective – retailers need a new way of thinking. The old solutions cannot meet the challenges of localization, strategically planned stock, or real-time, location specific inventory execution.

These are areas that retailers need to focus to become competitive and meet the challenges of growth and globalization. All of the 70+ retailers meeting with Quantum Retail today and tomorrow have embraced the reality that now is the time for innovation.

In today’s learning sessions, Quantum learned about retailers specific challenges in their business process, hardships of current legacy systems, concerns about integrating with other vendor solutions and the necessity to find a solution that can address the complexity of retailing in proliferated channels. To address these issues, Quantum shared the intelligence behind our systems, the necessity for a strategic plan for products and processes and showed interested retailers a demo of our unique solutions.

Only smart technology, like Q, has the ability to learn from the unique behaviors of customers and products at a store level perspective. With this understanding – Q uses product strategies to drive and integrate retail processes related to assortment and range planning, forecasting and order planning and allocation and replenishment, all in one dynamic and user-friendly system.


For more information about meeting with Quantum Retail at NRF or to set up an informational meeting, contact Wyatt Wood at wyatt.wood@quantumretail.com.


Photos //

Day 1

Day 2

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Marks & Spencer Selects Quantum Retail to Improve Inventory Management

by Quantum Retail • January 5th, 2010 • Write a comment »

Quantum’s Q system will manage the end-to-end inventory forecasting, replenishment and order planning needs for Marks & Spencer’s food division.

MINNEAPOLIS, MN and LONDON, UK – January 5, 2010 – Marks and Spencer Group Plc (M&S) has chosen Quantum Retail’s software solution, Q, to manage the end-to-end inventory forecasting, replenishment and order planning needs for its food division.

Q was selected following a full review of competing advanced inventory management solutions available in the marketplace. M&S began running Q for the first area of merchandise in less than 6 months. Rollout is planned to commence in 2010.

Discussing the challenges of fulfillment for food retailers, Wyndham Albery, VP EMEA for Quantum Retail said, “Balancing high on-shelf availability and low wastage goes to the heart of what Q does for food retailers. Our work with a recognized innovator like M&S is focused on supporting their commitment to high levels of profitable customer service through a customer centric supply chain process.”

Q meets inventory management challenges by considering constraints such as availability, shelf life and wastage. The system is able to forecast and make inventory decisions in real-time while considering both inter-day and intra-day stocking. Importantly, Q forecasts demand at an individual item/SKU level for every store, rather than using averages across a range of similar stores. Buying decisions are made based on current stock levels, as well as considerations such as daily selling patterns, product life-cycle, seasonality, projected waste, target service levels and inventory availability.

“We aim to provide M&S with capabilities that can provide real competitive advantage in the marketplace – Q is a tool to execute on the vision of customer service and availability,” stated Quantum Retail’s chief strategy officer and co-founder, Chris Allan, “and we are very excited to prove the value of our solutions to a great company like M&S.”

About Quantum Retail Technology, Inc.

Quantum Retail answers the new questions facing retailers with a merchandise optimization suite designed for the increasing pace and complexity of the consumer revolution and today’s competitive landscape. Quantum Retail’s solutions solve the most difficult and costly problems retailers face – quickly and permanently. Our Q solution is the answer for: Forecasting and Order Planning – Replenishment and Allocation – Assortment and Range Planning.

About Marks & Spencer

Marks & Spencer is one of the UK’s leading retailers with over 21 million people visiting their stores each week. They sell clothing, food and homeware and work hard to provide their customers with the highest quality products, service and shopping environments.

Follow Quantum Retail on Twitter @quantumretail

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