Run annually, the Ventana Research Digital Leadership Awards recognize organizations and individuals that utilize technology to advance business. They remind us that the modern world of business is led by technology; digital innovations aim to make our jobs and lives easier through improved efficiency, productivity, and performance.

For those companies that have invested in the right solutions, a whole new world of opportunity opens. Platforms like Board, for example, that drive decision-making through utilizing high volumes of data in a singular architecture to produce enhancements across the enterprise and in all critical business functions.

Ventana recognizes Digital Leadership at Burberry

The 14^th Annual Digital Leadership Awards from Ventana Research recently took place with luxury brand Burberry recognized for its utilization of the Board platform. Ventana Research announced that Burberry had won the 2021 Ventana Research Digital Leadership Award for Operations and Supply Chain.

Burberry’s journey with Board started with the retail planning platform being selected to transform merchandising and buying processes. With Board, Burberry adopted a single solution that:

• supports the digitization of merchandising buying processes, from global assortment definition to defining an initial buy by region, store and size
• visualizes the buying assortments at every step of the process
• utilizes analytics to support key decisions around depth and width of the buy
• aids planning in a more collaborative approach across the organization
• offers comprehensive reporting to the C-Suite.

By streamlining and digitizing merchandising and buying processes, Burberry can approach planning within a highly competitive and constantly changing market in a far more integrated and proactive manner.

End-to-end retail planning

The recognition from Ventana Research highlights a vital role technology must play in the future of retail planning, guided by an integrated approach. Retail planning platforms, such as Board, work by bringing together end-to-end retail processes (including merchandise financial planning, Open-to-Buy, range and assortment planning, replenishment, and allocation) with unified data from across the business to create a single, accurate, up-to-date point of truth from which to drive the business. Data transparency enables aligned strategic, financial, and operational planning across the enterprise and provides key benefits to organizations like Burberry, including:

• complete visibility of performance with powerful retail analytics
• transformed strategic retail planning process
• a more informed approach to retail financial planning
• more control over size planning & initial allocation
• enhanced merchandise financial planning activities
• increased accuracy of range & assortment planning
• complete control of store & DC replenishment
• effective management of Open-to-Buy.

Integrated Business Planning (IBP) has since become a best-practice approach. In fact, according to Ventana Research, IBP drives better performance through a collaborative, business-first approach across the enterprise. Their research highlights a direct correlation between the degree to which individual business plans are linked and how well a company’s planning process works. 66% of companies that directly link all their planning data through a dedicated planning platform have planning processes that work well or very well. This is comparable to 40% of companies where the information is copied and pasted (commonly seen in spreadsheet-based planning) and just 25% where there’s little or no connection between the plans.

Learn more

Bringing together end-to-end retail planning processes in a single platform, Board enables retailers to harness their data to make fast, informed decisions and effectively link strategy with execution.

We know that an integrated approach to retail planning is why businesses operating with Board are making headway during an exceptional period. Following Ventana Research’s announcement that Burberry has won their Digital Leadership Award for Operations and Supply Chain, you can see this too.

To learn more, check out the Ventana Research press release.