Bank Fashion

BANKS DOUBLES NUMBER OF BRANCHES

POWERFUL BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE TOOLS FUEL PHENOMINAL EXPANSION

Bank doubled the number of branches and believes this growth is due to better stock availability, faster replenishment, more accurate forecasting, minimal merchandising and buying costs and the use of sophisticated Business Intelligence tools.

The retail system's efficiency has improved sell through by 5% and increased staff efficiency. Only 7 merchandising and buying staff were needed to manage the extra volume of work. Also Warehousing staff have been reduced by 15% - despite 15 more stores being added!

INTELLIGENT PRODUCT ORDERING

One of the main reasons for Bank's phenomenal expansion is consistently having the right customer sizes in stock. Bank's buyers have used Futura's business intelligence tools to analyse where trends are taking off and to take full advantage, make sure the goods are then in stock. Using historical data, the system forecasts future buying patterns and allows buyers to use "what if" functionality to see the effects of buying one range over another.

To ensure Bank's customers can see available stock in several colours and sizes, the merchandising team look at historic stock levels and clothes sizes to guarantee the right size curves are in the store and target stock levels are reached. Bank analysed their customers size profiles, and so now they can accurately adjust size curves and reduce over-ordering in larger fringe sizes.

Buyers and managers can quickly see current stock levels, product performance and profitability in real time on the system and, importantly, what customers are not buying.By comparing sales with previous years', buyers can establish when sales patterns are different to determine real price elasticity, so stock can be priced right and mid season promotions can be changed - overnight if necessary!

EFFICIENT REPLENISHMENT

Merchandisers' target minimum stock levels are pre-defined for each store, so when the new stock arrives in the warehouse, it is quickly sorted and despatched in a very smooth operation, allowing little room for human error and creating massive efficiencies. Reducing administration.

The management uses Futura's powerful performance management and analytical tools to 'model' future sales, costs, cash and inventories, then define the top level budget.

Background to customer/ customer History

High street fashion chain Bank, one the Sunday Times' Top 100 growing companies, has expanded from 22 stores to 44 stores within 24 months.