Talk Retail to Me

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.

 

Critical Retail Pricing Capabilities for Inflationary Times

This episode of Talk Retail to Me features Principal Marty Anderson and Senior Manager Dmitry Magas, who are both retail pricing and advanced analytics experts.  A few weeks ago, Maria Monteros from Modern Retail interviewed Marty and Dmitry for an article she wrote titled, “Not raising prices is the hot new inflation marketing tactic.”  We invite you to sit in on their conversation, where the two experts discuss how different pricing strategies, along with deeply understanding price elasticities of your products, and the use of advanced analytics tools like Parker Avery's are capabilities that set retail leaders far ahead of their competition.

 

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.

Achieving Sustainability Maturity in the Retail Supply Chain

This week, we welcome Mark Burstein who is the EVP, Industry & Market Development for Logility. Logility is a supply-chain-focused solution vendor that is accelerating the digital sustainable supply chain by helping retailers seize new opportunities, sense and respond to changing market dynamics, and more profitably manage their complex global businesses.  Mark is also a Contributing Member of the Forbes Technology Council.

Joining Mark is Parker Avery Partner Randi Nolan.  The two industry experts recently attended the American Apparel and Footwear Association’s Traceability and Sustainability Conference held in beautiful downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  

In this episode, we discuss their key takeaways from the AAFA conference, as well as why retailers need to start now with a clear roadmap that includes sustainability in the supply chain. They also touch on where other retailers are in their sustainability efforts, as well as critical first steps retailers must take to achieve sustainable supply chain maturity. 

Learn more about Logility:  https://www.logility.com/

Learn more about the AAFA: https://www.aafaglobal.org/

 

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.

Retail Pricing and Promotions Deep Dive

This week, Parker Avery Principal Marty Anderson along with Senior Managers Heidi Csencsits and Dmitry Magas discuss retail pricing and promotions.  The three industry experts expand on their recent core merchandising conversation and take a deep dive into another key retail capability area. Along with host Tricia Gustin, the team covers:

• What is involved in the effective management of pricing and promotions?
• What key capabilities are the most important?
• What common mistakes or challenges do you see?  
• What innovations can improve a company’s capabilities in this area?

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

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.

Merchandise Financial Planning Deep Dive

In this episode, The Parker Avery Group continues our focus on core retail functions and we cover merchandise financial planning (MFP). Senior Director of Marketing, Tricia Gustin is joined by Senior Managers LouAnn Villasor and Russ Smith, both of whom have deep experience in merchandise financial planning business processes and system implementation across a wide variety of retailers. In this discussion, we focus on MFP challenges, innovations, and key capabilities.  

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

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.

Welcome to The Parker Avery Group Steve Gordon

This week, Parker Avery’s Chief Analytics Officer and Managing Partner, Sam Iosevich, and Senior Director of Marketing, Tricia Gustin, welcome Steve Gordon into the firm. Steve is an apparel, grocery, and CPG industry veteran with over three decades of experience as a retail industry insider, business development professional, and consultant.  He joins The Parker Avery Group as the firm's Chief Customer Officer.  Learn about Steve and Sam's long career history together and the key tenets they share about company culture, clients, and teams.  

• Read Steve's press release: https://parkeravery.com/industry-experience/the-parker-avery-group-expands-firms-executive-team/ 
• Learn more about The Parker Avery Group's consulting and analytics services: https://parkeravery.com/services/ 

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.