Ackermans Transforms Merchandise Financial Planning with Oracle

Ackermans is pleased to announce the successful implementation of the Oracle Retail Merchandise Financial Planning Cloud Service (MFP), replacing the former Enterprise Planning (EP) system. This transition marks a significant milestone in the leading value retailer's continuous efforts to enhance operational efficiency and support its planning teams.

The primary objective of this project was to replace the outdated EP system with Oracle MFP, a more robust and efficient solution tailored to meet the evolving needs of the business. This necessitated a thorough market evaluation to find a tool better suited to the company's needs. Following an extensive tender and evaluation process, Oracle emerged as the ideal partner for this transition.

"The transition to Oracle MFP represents a crucial improvement in our planning capabilities. We are confident that this upgrade will enhance our operational efficiency and provide our customers with a better shopping experience through improved product availability and planning accuracy," said Imke Henning, Business & Systems Integration Manager at Ackermans.

The AI-powered Oracle MFP application serves as a vital tool for product planners, planning managers, and central planning teams. The solution is designed to set seasonal targets for various clothing categories and divisions (girls, boys, women, etc.), facilitate the approval process of plans between product planners and planning managers, develop comprehensive seasonal business plans, and monitor weekly performance of product divisions and categories against targets.

Stakeholders impacted by the Oracle MFP upgrade-specifically customers and employees-can experience improved efficiency and accuracy of merchandise financial planning, supported by a better-managed inventory that leverages planning tools to streamline processes and help reduce system maintenance time.

The technical and operational benefits of Oracle MFP can include efficient resource use, reduced processing time by more than half, and continuous real-time updates with minimal disruptions in business operations.

This transition to Oracle MFP and the recent strategic leadership changes at Ackermans signify its commitment to leveraging advanced technologies and fresh insights to improve business processes and better serve its stakeholders. Ackermans worked closely with Oracle PartnerNetwork member Retsci to implement the Oracle Cloud MFP solution.

"The ability to partner at all levels of the organization within Ackermans was instrumental in delivering a solution that met the requirements that allowed the business to seamlessly move from their legacy planning solution to Oracle," said Bill Zacher, Chief Operating Officer, Retsci.

"With Oracle Cloud for Retail, Ackermans is driving greater financial accuracy through pre-season and in-season planning while creating greater operational efficiencies and alignment across all their planning teams," said Jeff Warren, Vice President, Global Retail Sales, Oracle. "This is resulting in better outcomes for their inventory management process and customers."