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4R Systems Introduces IPMax at Retail Systems 2003, New Service Helps Retailers Maximize Inventory Productivity
IPMax helps retailers optimize weekly replenishment of model stock enabling them to respond to sales trends, reflect seasonality and leverage the investment of existing systems through business process outsourcing
CHICAGO, IL - June 9, 2003 - Retail Systems 2003 - 4R Systems, Inc., a leading provider of software tools, analytical techniques and information services that enable retailers and their suppliers to profitably manage their SKU's throughout the retail lifecycle, unveiled today IPMax, a new service helping retailers maximize inventory productivity by optimizing the replenishment of their weekly model stock. The announcement was made at Retail Systems 2003/VICS Collaborative Commerce Conference & Expo in Chicago.
"With profit margins under pressure, retailers need to make the inventory asset more productive," said Jim Halpin, retail veteran and former CEO of CompUSA. "4R's revolutionary retail inventory analytics provide retailers with the ability to profit optimize their inventory and benefit by putting between 1–5% of sales on the bottom line as profit."
4R's IPMax enables dynamic inventory modeling by receiving weekly data from the retailer and then performing margin-optimizing analytics on the data. IPMax produces an optimized weekly model stock number that is then sent to the retailer for them to plug into their existing merchandising system. These model stocks are used for store allocations, vendor reorders or to update internal model stock levels—allowing the retailer to be more responsive to sales trends, better reflect seasonality and easily realize hard dollar benefits.
"Finding the optimal reorder point for replenishment items provides retailers with significant opportunities to better meet consumer demand while also better managing their cost of fulfillment," said Jiri Nechleba, 4R Systems' President and CEO. "We look at it like adding better, high-octane fuel to your car—your existing forecasting system may be running okay, however when you put the optimal reorder point into the system, it performs significantly better, yielding the best results. The key is IPMax aligns 4R's intellectual property—analytics, technology and staff—to maximally impact a retailer's inventory productivity, and profitability. In today's economy it is about results, not just tools."
IPMax is being used by a leading home fashion goods retailer that is using it to set model stocks for over 4 million SKU-Store combinations a week. The service is helping them to maintain high in-stocks while reducing inventory, saving them millions of dollars a year.
About 4R Systems
4R Systems, Inc. is a leading provider of software tools, analytical techniques and information services that allow retailers and manufacturers to increase the profitability of products by accurately matching supply with demand. 4R leverages transactional and point-of-sale (POS) data and turns it into critical decision-making information for forecasting and supply planning. The company was founded by supply chain experts Marshall Fisher of The Wharton School and Ananth Raman of Harvard Business School, whose groundbreaking research on product lifecycles with over 30 world-class retailers pioneered the retail analytics sector.
Based in Wayne, Pennsylvania, 4R's notable clients include Ahold, American Pacific, Linens 'n Things, Nokia and Stride Rite. For more information, please visit www.4rsystems.com or call 1-866-4RSYSTEMS.