The objective of Planning and Forecasting is to drive growth and profitability across the business by accurately predicting key performance metrics by channel and managing inventory in line with demand as it changes.
This analysis has shown that the Direct channels of Catalog and Web have significant differences in behaviors, structures and metrics, compared to the Store channel.
To optimize the planning process it is therefore critical to take account of these unique characteristics and treat each channel as distinct selling vehicles to proactively drive demand. An organization also needs cross-channel visibility to trends and the impact of changes in each individual channel on the ability to execute the overall strategic goals. However, trying to plan all channels as if they were the same will only result in a suboptimal plan and lost opportunities.
It is helpful to think about multi-channel planning in a similar way to how a customer shops. The customer expects the overall brand experience to be consistent across Web, Catalog and Store, but each selling vehicle represents a different experience for the shopper in terms of promotional offers, the amount of product information available, merchandise presentation and convenience.
These differences impact the way these channels need to be planned. Trying to support catalog planning or web planning with a store-focused planning process or solution will ultimately compromise customer service and erode profit margins.
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