Sportmaster automated commodity financial planning and demand forecasting based on Oracle Retail

The Oracle corporation announced in October, 2010 that the retail company selling sports goods Sportmaster uses Retail Oracle applications for quality improvement of planning processes and forecasting to support the growth in the market of a sports and casual dress.

Sportmaster manages more than 400 shops working under brands Sportmaster and Austin, offering buyers in 130 cities a wide range of products for sport and active holiday. The company felt the growing need for implementation of a business model which would allow it to become more flexible and exact in planning and satisfaction of consumer demand and expectations of buyers by the provided brands and collections. As a result for the solution of these tasks Sportmaster selected Retail Oracle applications.

The products "Commodity Financial Planning" and "Demand forecasting" help Sportmaster to optimize procedures of planning and forecasting, doing them by an integral part of the general business process considered as a key factor of increase in efficiency of the company. A set of the front lines the practician providing steady and high-quality information support of business replaced outdated applications, having allowed to automate manual processes, to reduce an imbalance in planning, having provided unity of data source, says Oracle.

Having provided to Sportmaster complete transparency of planning and also an opportunity to monitor all related processes within a common information space, Oracle applications of Retail help to manage goods flows, since early sales planning, a margin and investments into stocks and finishing with operational management during a season, including management of final sales. Creation of the plans of the high level defining strategic business objectives allows Sportmaster to optimize forecasting, commodity and financial planning for support of long-term growth and creation of the detailed plans focused at the level of categories, brands and shops.

Additional opportunities include: approval of commodity hierarchy of trade space of shops that allows Sportmaster to solve more accurately a problem of planning at the level of collections; and also approval of plans of the top level of detailed plans within all organization.

For October, 2010 Sportmaster completed the first project phase, having implemented the solution Oracle Retail on commodity financial planning. The company carries out works on input to commercial operation of the solution Oracle Retail for demand forecasting. The second project phase includes the implementing solution Oracle Retail for assortment planning in Sportmaster and Austin retail networks.