Making the Connection: JDA Software Outlines Why Retailers and Manufacturers Should Collaborate at the Shelf in 2011

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New York — January 10, 2011 --  NRF 100th Annual Convention & Expo --  With the critical holiday buying season now behind us, and the economy slowly inching upward,JDA Software Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: JDAS), The Supply Chain Company®, advises that now is the ideal time for retailers to examine their supplier relationships and determine how to maximize them in the year to come.

      
“Retailers are entering uncharted territory with consumers — the economy is showing signs of growth while at the same time consumers are demonstrating a reluctance to return to their pre-recession buying habits,” saidWayne Usie, senior vice president, retail, JDA Software. “Compounding this is the fact that consumers are more frequently turning to their mobile devices in stores for quick access to product and pricing information that will help with their buying decisions. That’s why JDA believes that it is imperative for retailers to transform their collaborative relationships with manufacturers, and a great place to start is at the shelf.”

Even though retail online sales are growing, in-store sales continue to make up the majority of a retailer’s business, making shelf awareness of critical importance. In addition to the product and pricing information available from manufacturers and other sources such as magazines and consumer groups, consumers themselves have emerged as key influencers. The continued growth of social networks and their ability to positively or negatively impact buying behavior requires extreme responsiveness on the part of retailers and their manufacturing partners. Increasing shelf-level collaboration allows both parties to more quickly maximize financial opportunity or minimize damage driven by the real-time information sharing among consumers. This information sharing occurs in a number of ways, including online product reviews, word-of-mouth discussions and viral campaigns enabled through networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others.

      
Furthermore, the increased pace of new product introductions requires visibility into demand signals and a greater knowledge of what is happening at the store level to enable more efficient promotions. It also allows for better on-shelf product availability and assortment offerings tuned to buyer preferences so that manufacturers can get the right amount of the right product to the right location at the right time.

      
Retailers have traditionally worked closely with manufacturers on broad business issues and to tackle specific distribution problems. Now, emerging retail trends and best practices indicate that many are ready to embrace the concept of the shelf-connected supply chain to build a more focused, effective relationship. Consider:

• Retailers are moving away from the traditional “one size fits all” shelf approach to building regional or cluster-level planograms and instead are embracing local and store-level planograms. By collaborating with manufacturers to develop store-specific assortments and planograms, retailers are better positioned to drive top-line sales and margin growth.
• As retailers transition from historical, volume-based promotional planning to forecast, profit-based promotional planning, there is opportunity for collaboration with manufacturing partners to gain joint margin improvements.
• Traditional merchandising and selling models are being abandoned by retailers who are adopting vertically integrated operations, creating an ideal environment for jointly managing inventories that are directly aligned and planned from the shelf back.
• Retailers are replacing their store and distribution center replenishment processes and solutions -- which are typically disconnected and next-order focused -- with multi-echelon, time-phased supply chain planning solutions that optimize product flow through to the shelf. Thus, collaborative and cross-enterprise planning by retailers and manufacturers can reduce overall supply chain and logistics costs and can help deliver margin gains to both parties.
• Point-of-sale data, traditionally used for historical data mining and analysis, is now being used by retailers with time-phased planning to drive predictive root-cause analytics. Sharing this next level of information with manufacturers helps retailers increase sales, minimize stock-outs and increase promotional effectiveness.

       A shelf-connected supply chain focuses on shelf-level data to drive product availability and joint marketing programs. It utilizes customized assortments based on customer demographics, store types, events and points in time, and leverages a wider variety of supply chain fulfillment models, enabling a faster and more effective supply chain response. A closer and more collaborative shelf-level relationship between retailers and manufacturers can improve performance, helping to ensure the right products are produced and delivered to the right place at the right price and time.

       “By connecting with manufacturers at the shelf, retailers can optimize their product mix, decreasing the need for markdowns and price protections,” said Usie. “With better collaboration retailers can move beyond sense and respond strategies that minimize loss, to predictive strategies that empower retailers and manufacturers to maximize profits, grow market share and increase customer satisfaction.”

       Enabling a shelf-connected supply chain allows retailers to get even closer to consumers by focusing on the demand signals generated at the shelf. To learn more about how JDA Software solutions and services help retailers and manufacturers connect at the shelf, please visit JDA at booth #415 at the National Retail Federation 100th Annual Convention & Expo on January 9-12, 2011 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York. Information is also available at www.jda.com.

About JDA Software Group, Inc.
JDA® Software Group, Inc.(NASDAQ: JDAS), The Supply Chain Company®, is a leading provider of innovative supply chain management, merchandising and pricing excellence solutions. JDA empowers more than 6,000 companies of all sizes to make optimal decisions that improve profitability and achieve real results in the discrete and process manufacturing, wholesale distribution, transportation, retail and services industries. With an integrated solutions offering that spans the entire supply chain from materials to the consumer, JDA leverages the powerful heritage and knowledge capital of acquired market leaders including i2 Technologies®, Manugistics®, E3®, Intactix® and Arthur®. JDA's multiple service options, delivered via the JDA® Private Cloud, provide customers with flexible configurations, rapid time-to-value, lower total cost of ownership and 24/7 functional and technical support and expertise.

Detailed Contact Info »

  JDA Software Group, Inc.
  14400 N. 87th Street
  Scottsdale, AZ 85260-3649
  Phone:480.308.3000
  Fax:480.308.3001

  Phone:  888.441.1532
  Phone:  301.255.5160

  Phone:800.785.5063

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Sales/Marketing:
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     800.479.7382
Government Purchasing:
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News Source : Making the Connection: JDA Software Outlines Why Retailers and Manufacturers Should Collaborate at the Shelf in 2011