For as long as most professionals can remember, the central ambition in retail has been to create a seamless, end-to-end buying and merchandising process. From initial planning before the season starts, to executing decisions during the season, this ambition has remained out of reach for many.
What makes this so complex is the sheer scope of what it covers. It includes detailed financial forecasting, assortment and range planning, price modelling, intake and stock flow planning, right through to promotional management, distribution and final clearance strategies. In effect, it is an attempt to unite the key disciplines of merchandising, marketing, pricing, and supply chain into a single, coherent system.
For decades, spreadsheets have been the dominant tool supporting these efforts. Their flexibility and accessibility transformed how head offices operated, giving teams the power to build custom models and derive intelligence from internal data sources. System vendors have long struggled to displace them, not because better tools didn’t exist, but because few could match the versatility and user control that spreadsheets allowed.
Replacing spreadsheets with fully integrated, automated workflows has become something of a retailing holy grail. Significant investments have been made in enterprise software and consulting, but many of these projects have failed to deliver the promised outcomes. The reality is that even now, much of a retailer’s core decision-making still sits inside spreadsheet models that are deeply embedded into everyday operations.
That is what makes the itim-Unify platform a meaningful step forward. This system overlays data or streamlines one part of the process, it also addresses the entire chain, making it possible to replace legacy spreadsheet systems with intelligent, integrated automation.
