Sure, you can plan alright, but how well can you implement?
I imagine this question keeps truly conscious merchants and consumer product marketers awake nights with what amounts to performance anxiety.
Those of you who follow the work of the In-Store Implementation Network may be well aware that members regard the pursuit of retail compliance as nothing less than an industry imperative. Our latest work on merchandising performance management (MPM) drives the point further. Our not-so-hidden agenda: Shift the dialog from hand-wringing about our challenges to identifying and implementing practical solutions.
You see, we are standing at the threshold of the next (maybe the last) great opportunity for retail financial performance gains - the stores themselves.
Shopper Insights let us design offers tailored to specific shopper groups.
Automated planogram tools let us tailor merchandising plans for each category in each store. We can layer on store-specific pricing, using the latest optimization technologies, and before long we've defined thousands of store-specific matrices of space, mix, price points and deals.
Yes, we make some impressively intricate plans, but can we implement them? Well, there's a dizzying amount of detail to cover, but realistic solutions may finally be at hand.
Now we are seeing a new class of MPM solutions reach the market. They are distinct from legacy workforce management and store execution management solutions in several important ways. First, they are engineered to manage outcomes, not just tasks or people. Because they incorporate a two-way platform for feedback and reporting, they support capture of performance metrics in real time.
Second, they are inter-organizational by design. That is, they support interaction from all the parties who plan merchandising and who touch the merchandise in stores - retailers, manufacturers, MSOs, brokers. This is most commonly accomplished through establishment of a secure, web-based portal that is accessible as an online service. As a result, all parties in the merchandising ecosystem view relevant performance data and contribute required feedback to the greater information flow.
Intricacy is the enemy. Most of what we try to do is not that hard. But there is so much detail to cover and those details are so... relentless. Performance anxiety must inevitably follow.
MPM solutions hold out the promise of a practical, every-day, plan-do-measure store compliance discipline that can gain a grasp on merchandising performance and find hidden profit in the stores - where it all started.
Discussion Questions: Can retailers truly perform against intricate plans derived from shopper insights and planogram automation? Is it time for them to step up and adopt merchandising performance management (MPM) solutions or should manufacturers take the lead? What impact would a true inter-organizational MPM solution have on collaboration?