1 DATASHEET | Oracle Retail Merchandise Financial Planning

Version 1 Copyright © 2022, Oracle and/or its affiliates

Oracle Retail

Merchandise Financial

Planning Cloud Service

In retail, it all starts with a plan. Senior management sets strategic

merchandise and financial objectives - and all the other departments

aim to meet them. In today’s retail world, management needs to set

goals for multiple channels and formats that are common in today’s

competitive environment. Independently, merchants, planners, store

operations managers, and others create many low-level financial, store,

item, assortment, and operational plans in order to support the

corporate plan’s goals. These low-level, detailed, financial, and unit

plans define how the retailer will achieve corporate goals.

ENABLING RETAILERS TO DRIVE PROFIT

Paired with Oracle Retail AI Foundation Cloud Service, Oracle Retail Merchandise

Financial Planning Cloud Service employs extensible analytics and AI to drive optimal

planning decisions.

Key benefits include:

 Integrated Forecasting - Bases plans on accurate demand forecast, rather

than focusing on sales history. Ensures all departments are working with a

common plan.

 Improved Accuracy - Provides views into sales history, actualized weekly

sales, and unconstrained forecast to support better, more accurate

planning.

 Increased Profits - Supports proactive retail management, resulting in

fewer lost sales, excessive markdowns, and unprofitable exit strategies.

 Increased Return on Investment - Enables receipt flow planning down to

the weekly level to maximize return on inventory investment and align

promotional activities with strategic goals by geography, class/category,

and selling channel.

 Reduced Markdowns - Ensures that bottom-up item plans reconcile with

top-down financial plans, preventing over-stocks.

 Scalable and Continuous Delivery - Solutions scale globally yet are

configurable to support changes in local markets through a continuous

delivery of enhancements and upgrades that can easily be applied.

Benefits

 Improved plan accuracy

 Increased gross margin

 Increased return on

investment (ROI)

 Reduced markdowns

 Lower total cost of ownership

(TCO)

 Future-proofed plans

https://www.oracle.com/industries/retail/planning-optimization/products/ https://www.oracle.com/industries/retail/planning-optimization/products/

1 DATASHEET | Oracle Retail Merchandise Financial Planning

Version 1 Copyright © 2022, Oracle and/or its affiliates

Key features include:

 Pre-Season and In-Season Planning - Provides both pre-season and in-

season planning with key financial indicators that include sales, markdowns,

receipts, inventory, gross margin, and open-to-buy.

 Plan Alignment - Users can bring many plans together for easy

reconciliation and approval through consistent, disciplined processes.

 Retail and Cost Accounting - Retailers can use either cost or retail

accounting methods.

 Exception Based - Exception management functions flag affected areas of a

plan that otherwise might not be noticed when managing large amounts of

data.

 Integrated Forecasting - This end-to-end suite of integrated solutions

ensures that all components of the retail enterprise can rely on a common

financial plan.

 Multi-Currency and Geography - Plans can be created, reviewed, and

approved in multiple currencies and languages.

 Fulfillment Planning - Supports cross-channel returns planning and

customer journeys (Buy Online Return in Store, Buy Online Pick Up in Store,

Buy in Store Ship From Warehouse) to increase inventory visibility, accuracy,

and reduce markdowns.

 Omnichannel Planning - Supports the modern retail model of buy

anywhere/fulfill anywhere, with channel-specific metrics for brick and

mortar stores, direct selling operations, and wholesale/franchise

enterprises.

 Integrated Forecasting - Bases plans on accurate demand forecast, rather

than focusing on sales history. Ensures all departments are working with a

common plan.

 Improved Accuracy - Provides views into sales history, actualized weekly

sales, and unconstrained forecast to support better, more accurate

planning.

 Increased Profits - Supports proactive retail management, resulting in

fewer lost sales, excessive markdowns, and unprofitable exit strategies.

 Increased Return on Investment - Enables receipt flow planning down to

the weekly level to maximize return on inventory investment and align

promotional activities with strategic goals by geography, class/category,

and selling channel.

 Reduced Markdowns - Ensures that bottom-up item plans reconcile with

top-down financial plans, preventing over-stocks.

 Scalable and Continuous Delivery - Solutions scale globally yet are

configurable to support changes in local markets through a continuous

delivery of enhancements and upgrades that can easily be applied.

ORACLE CLOUD INFRASTRUCTURE

All Oracle Retail Analytics and Planning cloud services are deployed as cloud-native

Software-as-a-Service solutions within Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) upon

Oracle’s Autonomous Data Warehouse, and are based upon an architecture and

technology stack that is optimally engineered for rapid, low-cost deployments and

exceptional performance and scalability, and the highest levels of system availability

and security - from storage to scorecard.

Features

 Quick implementation

 Merchandise and location planning

 Best practice-driven

 Proven, globally scalable planning

platform

 Omnichannel planning

 Supports multiple currencies and

geographies

 Pre and in-season planning

 Retail and cost accounting methods

 Automated exception management

functions

 Designed to be integrated with

Oracle Retail solutions

 Embedded Retail AI Foundation and

machine learning for:

o Forecasting Engine

o Customer Segmentation

o Advanced Clustering

o Profile Science

o Attribute Extraction &

Binning

o Customer Decision Trees

o Demand Transference

o Affinity Analysis

o Innovation Workbench

 Further extensibility with:

o Oracle Retail Home

o Oracle Analytics

o Oracle Application Express

o Oracle REST Data Services

o Oracle Machine Learning

1 DATASHEET | Oracle Retail Merchandise Financial Planning

Version 1 Copyright © 2022, Oracle and/or its affiliates

ORACLE RETAIL AI FOUNDATION

Core retail AI and machine learning (ML) powers all Oracle Retail Analytics and

Planning cloud services. For example:

Forecasting Engine - Provide an intelligent starting point for your planners, increasing

automation and accuracy. Move to a more touchless and exception management

planning process.

Customer Segmentation - Group customers based on attributes, behaviors, and

transactions to tailor offers, pricing, and assortments accordingly, incorporating

previously hidden patterns in your data.

Advanced Clustering - Cluster your stores based upon traditional approaches of

volume, square footage, region, etc., or leverage machine learning techniques to cluster

stores based upon similar selling patterns, truly creating a customer-centric assortment.

Profile Science - Determine the best size ratio for your buys by understanding the true

demand of your sizes while considering stock-outs.

Attribute Extraction and Binning - Extract item attributes from free-form descriptions,

correcting short forms, misspellings, and other inconsistencies, and apply them to

Demand Transference, Customer Decision Trees, Advanced Clustering, and more.

Customer Decision Trees - Understand how your customers are shopping your

assortments to drive attribute-based alternate hierarchies and effectively plan your

assortment the way your customer shops.

Demand Transference - Understand how unique your items are and the incremental

revenue that item brings to determine the most optimal assortment for your customer.

Affinity Analysis - Determine how items interact with each other to drive a more

effective promotional strategy within your financial planning process.

Innovation Workbench - Leverage open source along with your data science team to

create your own AI and ML models. Utilize the language of your choice with

Jupyter/Zeppelin notebooks.

ORACLE RETAIL HOME

Oracle Retail Home is a single access point, to simplify a user’s interactions with the

data and applications that are most relevant to their roles, and to better empower them

to anticipate informed

actions, and to inspire

engagement.

Based on a robust and

flexible portal

framework, Retail Home

is intended first to

provide timely and role-

specific high-level

insights, and second to

enable selectively

drilling into relevant

applications for more

details.

The Oracle Retail Analytics and

Planning family of cloud services

includes:

 Oracle Retail AI Foundation

 Oracle Retail Insights

 Oracle Retail Assortment and Space

Optimization

 Oracle Retail Promotion and

Markdown Optimization

 Oracle Retail Offer Optimization

 Oracle Retail Merchandise Financial

Planning

 Oracle Retail Assortment Planning

 Oracle Retail Demand Forecasting

 Oracle Retail Inventory Optimization

https://video.oracle.com/detail/video/5828487828001

1 DATASHEET | Oracle Retail Merchandise Financial Planning

Version 1 Copyright © 2022, Oracle and/or its affiliates

ORACLE ANALYTICS

Oracle Analytics can be used to generate and consume analytics from Oracle Retail AI

Foundation data, and in turn can also surface dashboards to Oracle Retail Home.

Oracle Analytics is a comprehensive platform that parlays data into information to

provide business insights, federating a broad array of features to suit business users,

power users and data scientists:

Governed Self-Service Augmented

 Corporate Dashboards  Data Preparation  Natural Language Processing

 Pixel Perfect Report  Data Visualization  Voice and Chatbot

 Semantic Models  Storytelling  Data Enrichment

 Role-based Access Control  Sharing and Collaboration  One-Click “Explain”

 Query Federation  Mobile Apps  Adaptive Personalization

Beyond the extensibility afforded by the Oracle Retail AI Foundation’s Innovation

Workbench, Oracle Analytics, and Oracle Retail Home, also included are Oracle Data

Store, Oracle APEX, and Oracle REST Data Services.

ORACLE DATA STORE AND APPLICATION EXPRESS

Oracle Retail Data Store can supply data for Oracle Application Express (APEX) apps

and Oracle REST Data Services, which both are included. APEX is a low-code

development platform that enables you to build scalable, secure enterprise apps with

world-class features that can be deployed anywhere.

Developers can quickly develop and deploy compelling apps that solve real problems

and provide immediate value using APEX. You won't need to be an expert in a vast

array of technologies to deliver sophisticated solutions. Focus on solving the problem

and let APEX take care of the rest.

ORACLE REST DATA SERVICES

Oracle REST Data Services bridges HTTPS and your Oracle Database, providing,

among other things, a REST API, SQL Developer Web, a PL/SQL Gateway, SODA for

REST, and the ability to publish RESTful Web Services for interacting with the data and

stored procedures in your Oracle Database.

ORACLE MACHINE LEARNING

Oracle Machine Learning supports data exploration, preparation, and machine

learning modeling at scale using SQL, R, Python, REST, AutoML, and no-code

interfaces. It includes more than 30 high-performance in-database algorithms

producing models for immediate use in applications.

By keeping data inside the database, organizations can simplify their overall

architecture and maintain data synchronization and security. It enables data scientists

and other data professionals to build models quickly by simplifying and automating

key elements of the machine learning lifecycle.

Request a 1:1 Demo

CONNECT WITH US

Call +1.800.ORACLE1, visit oracle.com/retail or email retail-central_ww@oracle.com.

Outside North America, find your local office at oracle.com/contact.

blogs.oracle.com/retail/ facebook.com/oracleretail twitter.com/oracleretail

Copyright © 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is provided for information purposes only, and the contents hereof are subject to change

without notice. This document is not warranted to be error-free nor subject to any other warranties or conditions, whether expressed orally or implied in law, including implied

warranties and conditions of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. We specifically disclaim any liability with respect to this document, and no contractual

obligations are formed either directly or indirectly by this document. This document may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or

mechanical, for any purpose, without our prior written permission.

Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners

https://www.oracle.com/industries/retail/planning-and-optimization-demo-form.html https://www.oracle.com/ mailto:retail-central_ww@oracle.com https://www.oracle.com/corporate/contact/ https://blogs.oracle.com/retail/ https://www.facebook.com/oracleretail/ https://twitter.com/OracleRetail