| Oracle® Retail Item Planning Configured for COE User Guide for the RPAS Classic Client Release 14.1 E55948-01 |
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| Oracle® Retail Item Planning Configured for COE User Guide for the RPAS Classic Client Release 14.1 E55948-01 |
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Oracle Retail Item Planning Configured for COE (IP COE) facilitates the translation of merchandise financial plans into execution level, item driven strategies to be followed throughout the life of a product. It represents the bottom-up planning process, complementing and working in concert with the top-down financial plans. By providing weekly visibility into item performance and financial targets, the item planning process increases the likelihood that merchandising strategies are successfully executed within the financial plan parameters.
Item Planning is part of an overall planning process that involves planning at multiple levels of the product hierarchy. The planning process can be thought of as a continual process where each workbook enhances the following, and prior performance affects plans for future performance. Planning takes input from multiple parties, and communication enhances the process to help drive a financial road map for success. Multiple versions of the plan are created to benchmark success as well as provide insight to opportunities and risk for the in-season period.
Item level planning provides the following benefits:
Quantified financial plans
Unified financial and item strategies
A proactive approach towards business trends as opposed to reactive
More efficient use of inventory
Reduced markdowns
Increased profits
Increased return on investment
Item Planning provides the following features:
Item/channel/week planning
Multichannel support
Unit plans converted into values
Reconciliation to financial targets
Preseason and in-season workflow process support
Item demand forecast
Promotional sales planning
Like item functionality
Placeholder functionality
Worksheet-to-weekly marketing strategy for each item
Self approval process
Robust planning and assessment measure set
Prior to the beginning of the style/color's lifecycle, the preseason planning takes place. The process begins with the planner reviewing external and internal data, such as MFP targets, and input from their merchant partners. The planner then maps history where needed for their items that are new, or perhaps have been included in a hierarchy reclassification, and for which the planner would like to specify which history should be utilized by specified items.
Best practices show that planning the reductions measures first, and within that, planning the sales units first, allows for a logical and smooth item planning process. The sales units set the tone by which the remainder of the planned measures are driven.
On the Item Plan Parameters worksheet, the planner selects parameters that initiate an item plan.
First, the planner defines sales and price based parameters such as Start Sell Week and Out of Stock Week, along with the number of stores to be planned and the Rate of Sale as well as Regular Price and Regular Cost. Then the planner selects the baseline curve to spread the sales units over the regular and promotional lifecycle of the item plan.
Next, the planner plans markdowns, first promotional markdowns by assigning style colors to pre defined promotions. Then the planner selects the clearance cadence to define their clearance sell off.
After the total sales units and values have been planned, the planner then defines the receipt parameters such as initial allocation percentage, presentation minimum, receipt frequency, and safety stock.
After receipts have been flowed, the planner can then review the item plan in total.
The planner then reconciles back to the MFP plans; if the plan is reconciled, the planner self-approves the plan.
If the plan does not reconcile back to the MFP plans, the planner returns to the plan's unit sales and reduction planning and adjusts areas of the plan that are required to select reconciliation back to the MFP plans.
Because this is an iterative process, clear communication to the planner's superior is integral to the efficiency and effectiveness of this process.
The following are versions of the plan:
Original Plan (Op): The benchmark against which to measure in-season performance.
Current Plan (Cp): The updated in-season plan to reflect actual and projected performance.
Working Plan (Wp): The item planner's plan version to use while creating the Cp.
Once the plan period process has begun, in-season planning begins. The planner now uses the plan created in the preseason planning process as the benchmark for successful in-season planning. To begin the in-season planning process, the planner first manually reviews the factors that affect sales.
The planner begins by reviewing the Dashboard worksheet, which highlights the style/colors that are performing differently from the Original Plan. The style/colors that have the largest variance from the plan are likely to need the most attention. By using the exception measures in the Dashboard, the planner can quickly identify the style/colors that need replanning.
The planner determines whether these events are still be going, or whether they behave the way they were originally planned. If these special trends does not persist, the planner determines the differences and how they affect the performance of the item. After this process is complete, the planner updates unit sales if needed. As in the preseason planning process, in which planning sales first is the best way to approach a new plan, sales is the first measure that should be updated for in-season planning. All remaining measures are affected by sales.
Next, the planner adjusts future receipts as needed. The planner also reviews how the new sales and receipts affect the resulting inventory. Then the exit strategy is updated. Once the exit strategy is updated, the planner reviews the result in their plans. Then the planner reconciles to MFP, and if the plans are reconciled, the planner self-approves the plan to the current plan. If the plan is not reconciled, the planner goes back to unit sales and performs adjustments as necessary. This process continues until the item plan is reconciled to the MFP plan.
