Corporate Strategy
In any organisation, accurate information is the most
important factor in effectively understanding, and thereby predicting, consumer
behaviour. But our research has failed to find a single company that has
a corporate strategy which involves all departments sharing all their knowledge
and learning. Historical, price, promotion and event information held by
Category Management and Marketing may not always easily be accessible to
Supply Chain Forecasters. Out-of-stock (or more importantly, partial out-of-stock)
and waste information held by Store Operations may not always be measured
accurately enough and may never find its way back to the Supply Chain Forecasters.
Similarly, HR will have data relating to staff numbers, staff numbers affect
shelf replenishment and a cause of Out of Stocks, but how often do forecasting
teams take this into consideration in their analysis, or even know of its
existence? There are many examples of where cross functional data is an absolute
necessity to provide full understanding.
There is information within each and every department within a retail organisation which isn't used to its best advantage. In an attempt to address this, many companies try to bring this analysis into a hub such as Customer Insight, as catalysts between the multifunctional departments. We have discovered that often, even these departments become insular within the total organisation and need greater expertise and understanding.
Without total collaboration between all departments, full understanding
of the core drivers of consumer behaviour will never be achieved. What
is needed is a conduit for data between all parties involved in the forecasting
operation that will implement an overall corporate strategy. This is where
the Naxis System comes into its own. It not only operates with complete
collaboration with all departments of a business, but produces benefits
of improvement across each and every department with one aim - to fulfil
consumers' desires.
