Talk Retail to Me

Transformation Happy Hour | Integrated Business Planning

Hosted by retail demand planning experts, Sam Iosevich, Marty Anderson, and Steve Gordon, Parker Avery's recent Talk Retail to Me Transformation Happy Hour covered integrated business planning as a key strategic focus area for leading retailers and consumer brands. The trio outlined key enablers around technology, business process, and organization that help companies unleash collaboration and efficiencies with integrated business planning to help realize meaningful business improvements.

During this interactive happy hour, Sam, Marty, and Steve introduced Parker Avery's retail and CPG planning maturity model and answered participants' most pressing questions regarding integrated business planning.

Show resources:

• Insights | The Expert Guide to Integrated Business Planning
• Download | Retail and CPG Planning Maturity Model
• Download | Integrated Business Planning Resources
• Parker Avery Blog | Transform Your Retail Enterprise with Advanced Analytics
• Parker Avery Blog | How to Overcome the AI Hype and Drive Retail Collaboration
• Case Study | Unified Demand Signal Drives Global Retailer’s Enterprise Agility
• Case Study | Integrated Merchandise Planning Design and Roadmap

To learn how Parker Avery helps clients achieve better planning capabilities, please visit our Enterprise Intelligence page or contact us to set up a time to discuss your specific needs. 

Business Process Transformation Deep Dive

This episode of Parker Avery's Talk Retail to Me podcast focuses on business process transformation. Featuring two of our retail leaders, Clay Parnell and Deanna Emsley, we take a deep dive into what it means to transform business processes. We cover what areas are focus points for our clients, how Parker Avery helps retailers and consumer brands prioritize and navigate these process transformations, and what success looks like. 

Moderated by Senior Director, Tricia Gustin, Clay and Deanna discussed the following questions

1. What does business process transformation mean?  What might it include?
2. Is every change in the way things are done a “business process transformation”?
3. What is the most common trigger for a process transformation within a business?
4. What processes or functional areas do we see the most opportunities for transformation today?
5. Should retailers think about business process transformation as a short or long-term effort?
6. Is business transformation usually tied to new system implementation or can it be a stand-alone activity?
7. What are the biggest challenges our clients face when transforming their business processes?  
8. What are some key success factors when launching a business transformation effort?

For more information about Parker Avery's business transformation and retail consulting services, please visit:

• https://parkeravery.com/retail-consulting/
• https://parkeravery.com/retail-consumer-goods-consulting/business-transformation/

 

Transformation Happy Hour | Data Governance and Retail Master Data Management

With technology moving at lightning speed, proper management of master data is critical to fully take advantage of new tech innovations.  Yet, many retailers struggle with master data management and overall data governance. 

Hosted by master data experts and retail veterans, Deanna Emsley, Heidi Csencsits, and Rob Gentry, our June 29 Talk Retail to Me Transformation Happy Hour will dive deep into the most pressing master data challenges Parker Avery's clients and other retailers are facing.  

Our happy hour hosts provide a brief overview of master data challenges and the implications of not having a planful approach and governance in place.  Most of the happy hour is spent answering questions and having an open dialog with participants.

Show resources:

• Download | Data governance scope and definitions infographic 
• Download | Data governance and master data management resources
• Parker Avery Blog | Project Planning: Four Considerations for Data Readiness
• Parker Avery Blog | Make No Mistake: Avoiding Data Governance Issues
• Case Study | Master Data Consolidation Enables Core Merch Transformation
• Case Study | Item Master Assessment and Implementation

 

Transformation Happy Hour | More On Transformational Leadership

Back by popular demand! Due to so much interest in our earlier podcast discussion on Transformational Leadership, we hosted an online happy hour focused on the same topic so we could answer your questions in a live format.

 

This fun, interactive event was hosted by Parker Avery OCM experts and retail veterans, Kathi Toll, Marty Anderson, and Carrie Habel who refocused the traditional paradigm of change management to a mindset that instills stronger elements of transformational leadership. Joining from three different states, three timezones, two airports, and one home office, Kathi, Carrie, and Marty discussed how retail leaders can assess and improve their ability to engage their teams to become ambassadors of meaningful transformative change. 

 

Materials and links discussed during the show:

• Change Management Resources (online)
• OCM and Transformational Leadership Resources (pdf)
• Change Management Assessment
• The Nordy Pod

To learn how Parker Avery helps clients through transformations and navigate change, please see our change management services: https://parkeravery.com/change-management-services/

 

Retail Hierarchies Deep Dive

In this episode of Talk Retail to Me, Parker Avery consultants and retail veterans Marty Anderson, Deanna Emsley, and Mike Johnson take a deep dive into the world of retail hierarchies. Senior Director of Marketing, Tricia Gustin, hosts the discussion, during which the experts discuss:

• What are retail hierarchies and what roles are involved?
• Why they are so often mismanaged or poorly executed?
• What are best practices when it comes to developing and maintaining retail hierarchies?
• Where does data governance factor in with hierarchies?
• What systems support hierarchies and which integrations are important?

To learn more about Parker Avery's retail consulting services and our areas of expertise, please visit: https://parkeravery.com/consulting-services/

Allocation and Replenishment Deep Dive

In this episode of Talk Retail to Me, Parker Avery consultants take a deep dive into allocation and replenishment. Coming off the heels of Shoptalk 2023, where so many people are still reaching for the shiny tech, we are focused on ensuring the basics of retail are securely and optimally in place so those customer-facing innovations work well and deliver a great customer experience.

Allocation and replenishment is one area with its share of innovations like integration to AI-driven demand forecasting, but also brings lots of opportunities to increase internal and external efficiencies and result in better inventory management and visibility. 

Senior Director of Marketing, Tricia Gustin, hosts Parker Avery retail experts Nia McDonald, Mike Johnson, and Dave Seeley.  All are senior managers with Parker Avery and have been deep in client work focused on allocation and replenishment.

To learn more about Parker Avery's retail consulting services and our areas of expertise, please visit: https://parkeravery.com/consulting-services/

Transformational Leadership

Organizational change management and retail experts Kathi Toll and Carrie Habel discuss transformational leadership and why this competency is critically important. They outline how it differs from change management and specific tactics retailers and brands must take to evolve their organizations and people into transformational leaders.

• Meet Kathi Toll: https://parkeravery.com/kathi-toll/
• Meet Carrie Habel: https://parkeravery.com/carrie-habel/

To learn more about The Parker Avery Group and our range of consulting services for retailers and CPG companies, please visit https://parkeravery.com.

For the video version of this episode, visit: https://youtu.be/XibEpX3uuvc

Next-Generation Integrated Business Planning

In this episode of our Talk Retail to Me podcast, we discuss integrated business planning (IBP) and how Parker Avery approaches this strategic capability that many retailers and consumer brands struggle to effectively grasp because of the traditionally highly siloed nature of planning.

This episode features Sam Iosevich, Parker Avery’s Chief Analytics Officer, and Steve Gordon, our Chief Customer Officer. Both Sam and Steve have deep experience with aligning organizations’ planning processes around a unified demand signal.   

Also joining the conversation is retail veteran and Principal Marty Anderson, who lends an industry-backed perspective from his experience implementing integrated business planning at Belk. 

The trio of experts outlines changes and challenges companies experience as they attempt to migrate towards more collaborative IBP, and how Parker Avery’s Enterprise Demand Intelligence solution not only easily integrates into our clients’ existing planning systems, but provides data at levels and measurements appropriate to be used by each functional area.

 

To learn more about Parker Avery's retail and demand planning experience, clients, and consulting services, please visit https://parkeravery.com

 

Introduction music: On My Way by Kevin MacLeod | Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4163-on-my-way | License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | Cover image by Jorge Guillen from Pixabay.

Product Development Deep Dive

Tricia Gustin, Senior Director of Marketing for The Parker Avery Group is joined by Parker Avery’s CEO, Robert Kaufman, along with Senior Manager John Lawing. The trio takes a deep dive into the product development process and supporting PLM systems. Based on their decades of experience helping Parker Avery clients enhance this key functional area, they also highlight best practices and innovations that retailers and brands should be considering, as well as common pitfalls to avoid. Questions covered include:

• What is product development and what roles are involved?
• What key capabilities are the most important?
• What are the best practices for product development and PLM system implementations?
• Alternatively, what common mistakes or biggest challenges do you see today?
• What innovations can improve a company’s product development capabilities?

To learn more about Parker Avery's retail and product development experience, clients, and consulting services, please visit https://parkeravery.com

 

Introduction music: On My Way by Kevin MacLeod | Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4163-on-my-way | License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | Cover image by Jorge Guillen from Pixabay.

Mathematics Students Gain Retail Analytics Experience Through Parker Avery Partnership

In this episode of Talk Retail to Me, Tricia Gustin is joined by Parker Avery's Chief Analytics Officer Sam Iosevich, along with Senior Analytics Consultant Scott Kirila and Professor Alex Iosevich from the University of Rochester mathematics department. This episode provides an insider’s view of the university’s STEM Tripods 2022 summer research program. The group discusses the "real world" retail industry experience the participating students received, Parker Avery's hands-on involvement, as well as how the program continues to expand. 

STEM for All is a month-long summer program during which participants from the university and other local colleges, as well as some high schools, work on intensive research projects outlined by billion-dollar, global companies. The Parker Avery Group’s analytics team has been deeply involved in these STEM programs for several years, and the team will continue its partnership with UR in future research programs.  

To learn more and get involved in this growing program, please use the following links:

Parker Avery press release

 

2022 version of the STEM For All program:
https://people.math.rochester.edu/faculty/iosevich/stemforall2022.html
 
Ongoing undergraduate research program:
https://people.math.rochester.edu/faculty/iosevich/Fall2021DataScienceUndergradResearch.html

 

Research paper resulting from Tripods/StemForAll2022 (Alex and Scott are co-authors):

https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.12079

 

Featured on the Best 60 Retail Podcasts

Introduction music:  On My Way by Kevin MacLeod | Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4163-on-my-way | License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | Cover image by Jorge Guillen from Pixabay.