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The New Supermodels of the Fashion Industry
How Mathematical Algorithms are Changing Retailing Traditions
(…where M.I.T. meets F.I.T.)
WAYNE, PA, April 30, 2002 —Thanks to advances in sales technology, fashion retailers and other merchandisers of short lifecycle products have more data about consumer spending than they ever had. But converting this data into information that tells retailers what products should be on which store shelves everyday — and how to price them — will ultimately determine who will win the retail wars, say experts at 4R Systems, a leading provider of analytical software to the retail industry.
4R co-founders Marshall Fisher and Ananth Raman, senior professors at Wharton and Harvard Business School, respectively, and Jeff Singer, 4R CEO and former SAP executive, can discuss:
Why forecasting and supply planning errors remain high for the industry, despite significant investments in consultants and enterprise systems - and why companies like Ahold, Stride Rite and American Pacific are implementing 4R software to determine daily inventory requirements for every store and SKU.
What causes the disconnect between distribution centers and the stores they serve — and how analytic retailing uses mathematical algorithms to factor in such variables as sales promotions and weather to bridge this gap.
How the focus on data-to-information conversion will help retailers deal with rapidly changing consumer tastes and the push for broader product selection — and why concepts like 'data cleansing' and 'store/SKU clustering' will soon become industry buzz words.
4R Systems Inc. is a leading provider of analytical software that allows retailers and manufacturers to increase the profitability of short lifecycle products by accurately matching supply with demand. The 4R Supply PlannerTM product includes the following components: Merchandise Test, Read/React, Replenishment and End of Life. Together, they leverage point-of-sales (POS) data and turn it into critical decision-making information for forecasting and supply planning. The company was founded by supply chain experts Marshall Fisher of Wharton Business School and Ananth Raman of Harvard Business School, whose groundbreaking research on product lifecycles at over 30 world-class retailers pioneered the retail analytics sector.
For more information, please contact:
Annette Powers, Miller DeMartine Group, (203) 221-2790 or apowers@mdgpr.com