How AI Will Fuel Next-Gen Merchandising Decision Support Systems

Aligning assortment merchandising strategies and planning with consumer purchase behavior has been the holy grail. Traditional merchandising planning and optimization solutions have remained relatively unchanged since the 1980s, putting more pressure on the existing solutions and the human decision-making process. These current solutions and processes rely on outdated industry conventions and human constructs or assumptions.

However, Next Generation's ("NextGen") merchandising solutions aim to make category management more effective by using the wealth of datasets available today with sophisticated machine learning algorithms to drive merchandising decisions to a precision not possible with current offerings.  They essentially combine the tasks of assortment analysis, category assessment, assortment optimization, and planogram development into one so category managers can focus on what humans are good at; being more strategic, rapid, and transparent in their assortment decisions with retailers. 

You will cover in this guide:

• Category management hierarchical evolution
• Why assortment planning will get harder and harder
• Why merchandising and category managers' jobs will get harder
• Why current assortment planning and optimization approaches are broken?
• The growing importance of retail and CPG collaboration
• How AI will augment retail & CPG collaboration
• Next-Gen merchandising solutions & strategy augmentation
• Next-Gen merchandising solutions & capabilities
• Next-Gen merchandising solutions foster new cultural change
• Conclusion: What next-gen merchandising solutions will offer

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