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May 2007 - Forrester Research Report: Customer Centricity
Takes Merchandising Into New Territory Smart retailers are now shifting toward consumer-centric merchandising to drive merchandising decisions from market segmentation insights.
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April 2007 - Agile Logistics, Transforming Supply Chains through Agility Dow Jones and UPS asked people to submit their business challenges. They specifically asked "What complex issue is critical to your success?" One of the challenges mentioned was Agile Logistics. Marshall Fisher, UPS professor in the Operations and Information Management department at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, co-director of the Fishman Davidson Center for Service and Operations Management, and co-founder of 4R Systems addresses this issue in the video link below. |
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December 16, 2004 - How Star Retailers Turn Fast (original article ran Wed 11/10/2004) Any woman who regularly shops specialty retailers like Gap, Abercrombie
& Fitch, H&M or PacSun can tell you that clothes, just like first-run
movies, don't have the shelf life they used to. Partly inspired by the
example of H&M and Zara, which are known for their ability to ship new
styles to stores in only three weeks, American retailers are turning
inventory more frequently each season... "The trick is providing the
right degree of the right product at the right time in the right place
- and to do that plus turn fast, that's hard," said Marshall Fisher.
The stores he's seen succeed at it have three things going for them:
accurate forecasts, optimized inventory levels, and supply chain speed
or flexibility..." |
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July 2006 - Retailers as 'Stock' Investors Finding a balance between the cost of inventory and lost sales is key.
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May 2006 - The Art of Analytics Crate and Barrel balances store-level SKUs with company profits.
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November 2005 - The Intelligent Supply Chain Using business intelligence tools, retailers are reducing inventory levels and improving inventory turns. Better forecasting, demand evaluation and data handling all are contributing to improvements that help retailers reduce inventory by large percentages. |
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October 2005 - Data Determination: How to find and
choose the right information to accurately drive price optimization Price optimization is a complex problem. On the one hand, historical sales and price data are easily available (although massive and tough to navigate) and provide one source to analyze pricing information. Alternatively, consumer data can be collected within a product category to drive pricing optimization which is more expensive to obtain. What data should be used to analyze price? Is there a tried and true method? 4R's CEO Jiri Nechleba discusses how by tapping historical sales and price data, pricing changes and resulting sales can be examined to see how purchasing shifted. |
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May 2005 - Rebel With A Cause (Cover Story) Crate and Barrel is a very specialized retailer with some rather unique
IT needs. And even Ed Rennemann (CIO, VP MIS) isn't above choosing an
off-the-shelf solution where it makes the most sense. And example of
that is Crate & Barrel's ongoing work with with 4R Systems to sharpen
its inventory management. The Cover Story provides background on Ed's
years with Crate and Barrel and discusses his philosophy on off-the-shelf
solutions vs. do-it-yourself IT solutions.
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June 6, 2005 - Crate and Barrel Maximizes Supply Chain Efficiencies Retailers today have great opportunities available to optimize profitability
throughout their products’ lifecycle. More than just forecasting better,
they need to be able to use forecasts better. It requires overlaying
cost data with forecasts to develop micro-P&L at the store/SKU level.
Home furnishings retailer Crate and Barrel may not be the oldest company,
having first opened its doors in 1962 as a family business, but it is
well-schooled in responding to sales trends. Recently, the retailer
selected 4R Systems, Inc., a leading provider of software tools, analytical
models and information services, to help significantly increase profits
by optimizing inventory and related supply chain decisions. |
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December 16, 2004 - How Star Retailers Turn Fast (original article ran Wed 11/10/2004) Any woman who regularly shops specialty retailers like Gap, Abercrombie
& Fitch, H&M or PacSun can tell you that clothes, just like first-run
movies, don't have the shelf life they used to. Partly inspired by the
example of H&M and Zara, which are known for their ability to ship new
styles to stores in only three weeks, American retailers are turning
inventory more frequently each season... "The trick is providing the
right degree of the right product at the right time in the right place
- and to do that plus turn fast, that's hard," said Marshall Fisher.
The stores he's seen succeed at it have three things going for them:
accurate forecasts, optimized inventory levels, and supply chain speed
or flexibility..." |
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June 2004 - Beacons of Progress: Executive Technology's 2004 CIO/IT Leadership & Innovation Awards Jeffrey Steinhorn, Senior VP and CIO at Linens 'n Things, was chosen
as one of Executive Technology's 2004 CIO/IT Leadership & Innovation
Award recipients. These awards shine a spotlight on the foremost CIO's
and senior technology executives in the retail industry today.
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March 2004 - The Complete Guide to Merchandising 2004 In this feature article, RIS News identifies eight key merchandising
tactics and technologies that add to the bottom line. |
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February/March 2004 - 4R Chairman and Co-Founder, Marshall Fisher, Chosen as 2004 "Pro to Know" Supply & Demand Chain Executive Magazine, which provides complete
knowledge and information on end-to-end supply and demand chain solutions,
this week announced the third-annual listing of top supply and demand
chain professionals in its February/March 2004 issue. 4R's Marshall
Fisher was chosen as a "Pro to Know" in the Practitioner category. |
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February 9, 2004 - Mothers Work Gets Size Allocation Down to a Science They say, "A mother's work is never done," and for aptly named retailer
Mothers Work,
the task of streamlining store replenishment and supply chain operations
is ongoing as well. Accurately allocating styles at the appropriate
size continues to be a critical task for many retailers. By applying
advanced analytics to historical sales and inventory data, 4R will work
with Mothers Work to establish a baseline to optimize the effectiveness
of current size allocation practices. |
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January 12, 2004 - Holiday Rush Pushes Retailers to Spend National Retail Federation to showcase aisles of wares to improve
operations. |
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October 24, 2003 - The Price is Right, or Is It? Determining the Impact of Price on Sales NRF SmartBrief featured article:
Retailers often don't take advantage of benefits of price testing |
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May/June 2003 - Merchandise Optimization: Giving Customers What They Want This article discusses how retailers no longer have to rely on instinct
to make pricing and product decisions and how new approaches will allow
merchandisers to accurately forecast inventory needs for upcoming seasons
based on customer buying histories and preferences.
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April 2003 - Merchandising, Planning, Allocation: New Recipes for Success The article discusses how increasingly, retailers are turning to software
solutions to marry the "science" of data crunching and analysis with
the "art" of merchandising. In doing so, they are removing some guesswork
from traditional planning processes. American Pacific's Gary Gleckner
discusses how there's another area that's ripe for optimization, and
that is the relationships that retailers have with their supply partners.
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February 2003 - Intelligent Replenishment - Linens 'n Things evaluates SKU-level sweet spot weekly Thanks to a mathematically based software solution piloted in 2002,
Jeff Steinhorn, Linens 'n Things senior VP and CIO, predicts the company
will save millions of dollars in 2003 because of improved forecasting
on SKU-level inventory replenishment.
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December 2002 – Wharton Professor Explains Retail Product Management Retail Systems Alert recently spoke with Dr. Marshall Fisher, UPS professor
of operations and information management at the University of Pennsylvania's
Wharton School. |
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November 2002 - Linens 'n Things Protects Inventory Investment with Supply Planning Suite Application helps retailer manage and replenish store-level stock to
meet customer demand and eliminate out-of-stocks.
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November 2002 - Linens 'n Things Optimizes Inventory Management Procedures The 380-unit, 27,000 SKU home goods retailer streamlines fulfillment
processes. |
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November 2002 - Linens 'n Things Enhances Decision Support In order to decrease lost sales due to –out-of-stocks and maintain
or reduce inventory investment, Linens 'n Things, Inc. sought a solution
that could optimize inventory levels through improvement of forecasting
and replenishment processes. |
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September 24, 2002 — Retailer Keeping Inventory House In Order Linens 'n Things CIO Jeff Steinhorn discusses his company's decision
to deploy 4R's Supply Planning Product Suite across its 360-plus stores
enabling them to better manage the supply and demand for their large
mix of products. |
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August 2002 — Supporting Cast: From Packaging to Pillow Inserts, These Suppliers Have What the Trade Needs to Succeed 4R is highlighted in the August issue of LDB Interior Textiles magazine,
an authority on the home fashions industry. The feature can be found
in the Supply Side section of the publication and touches on the value
of implementing 4R's products for retailers, as well as manufacturers
such as American Pacific. |
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June 28 - July 4, 2002 — 4R Assisting Big Firms with Supply Tracking 4R Systems is profiled in this Philadelphia Business Journal article.
The article discusses how and why the company was founded, current clients
and the work that is being done, and includes interviews with 4R CEO
Jeff Singer and American Pacific Director of IS Gary Gleckner.
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June 2002 — Forrester Research Report: Boost Margins With Merchandise Optimization With new merchandise optimization technology, retailers will be able
to integrate and automate planning, allocation, and pricing processes,
resulting in higher gross margins and more efficient operations.
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June 2002 — Uncertainty Anchored Optimization — Retail's New Planning Model This article, written by Jeffrey Singer, President and CEO of 4R Systems
for Retail Systems.com, discusses the demand for better approaches to
managing the supply chains of short lifecycle products and how a number
of forward-thinking retailers are embracing Uncertainty Anchored Optimization. |
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March 19, 2002 — 4R Systems Gets $3M Wayne-based 4R Systems Inc., a developer of supply-chain management
software for products with short life cycles, said it has received a
$3 million, second-round venture funding from TH Lee Putnam Ventures
and TSG Equity Partners. |
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January 14, 2002 — Retailing in 2002: Extreme Measures A Must for Recovery 4R's Co-founder, Ananth Raman and CEO, Jeff Singer discuss the importance
of converting retailer's data into information useful for making decisions
on inventory, and the value of applying math and analytics to the buying
process which amounts to huge savings.
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August 2000 — With Billions of Bytes of Customer Data, How Can Retailers Be "Starved for Information"? It seems that both traditional bricks-and-mortar retailers and online
"e-tailers" are drowning in a sea of customer information. The question
is, with all this sophisticated technology on hand, why have department
store markdowns over the last 20 years grown from 8% to a whopping 33%
of sales? Inc. discusses this question and the concept of rocket science
retailing with 4R Co-founder Marshall Fisher. |
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