Capabilities further strengthen JDA Category Management solution

Capabilities further strengthen JDA Category Management solution : The current retail environment is putting extreme pressure on retailers to maximize profits from every inch of retail space. To truly optimize space, retailers must start with a localized assortment strategy. However, localizing assortments across a diverse chain of stores can be a daunting task. JDA Software Group, Inc., ensures that retailers and their trading partners are able to create compelling, localized assortments with JDA Category Management solutions. New capabilities introduced today in JDA Category Management 9.1 maximize profitability of assortments while taking into account availability of shelf space.

“We continue to enhance JDA Category Management solutions with the capabilities that empower category managers to move from manually intensive tasks to developing localized, actionable assortment plans based on analytics-driven insights that collaboratively grow category sales and margins for both suppliers and retailers,” said Kent Ruesink, senior director, JDA Software. “With the substantial increase in consumer choices and neighborhood stores, category managers need to be more informed and selective on which products are stocked on the decreasingly available retail shelf space. The key to long-term success is creating profitable localized assortments and large volumes of optimized store-specific planograms.”

JDA Assortment Optimization now includes an enhanced Transferable Demand calculation method based on attribute matching. When a product is deleted or added, the impact is calculated by examining a set of attributes and identifying whether other products in the assortment match some or all of those attributes. Understanding transferable demand allows retailers to determine which items to delist or replace from slow selling products to cut the least incremental items on store shelves.

Planners can also more easily manage assortment hierarchies and perform tasks on multiple assortments at the same time within JDA Assortment Optimization. Additionally, other JDA Category Management applications that use store-specific data are now aware of the assortments assigned to each store through JDA Category Knowledge Base. This helps managers identify which products should replace deleted products within a current assortment, enabling them to easily review a larger number of assortments through flexible scorecards.

Retailers often struggle with automating large volumes of pegboard planograms that visually represent the right assortment in addition to balancing store execution and customer satisfaction. While the transition to localized assortments will require a significant increase in planograms, JDA addresses this obstacle in its latest release of JDA Planogram Generator with new pegboard merchandising enhancements. This will give users better control over the placement and sequence of pegged positions, allowing customers to localize more categories within their merchandise portfolio.