Major pharmacy retailer partners with Plantensive to implement Blue Yonder floor planning systems, processes and tools.

Client
Rexall, a pharmacy retailer
Services
Floor Planning Implementation, Floor Plan Conversion Tool Support, Macro Space Planning Team, Training
Area of Expertise
Implementation
Training and Support
Industry
Retail Pharmacy

Challenge

The floor planning workload of Rexall, a leading pharmacy retailer in Canada, was relying on manual record-keeping and the documentation of changes in a flat-file format. This included manual ad-hoc space analysis reporting without a data-driven category knowledge base, causing errors in the assignment of planograms. Because ad hoc comparisons were being documented outside of the database, there were discrepancies between store actuals and database reports. Rexall faced additional challenges related to the timing and speed of implementation because of the number of projects involved, making scalability a difficult task.

Solution

Rexall selected Plantensive as their implementation partner to deploy their Blue Yonder floor planning project. Immediate and consistent communication and collaboration led to the development of a coordinated, strategic plan that began with the deployment of the Blue Yonder floor planning system, streamlining floor plan management processes through the simplification of planning activities. The integration of Blue Yonder’s category knowledge base and AutoCAD conversion tools created a centralized hub to efficiently manage and store their floor plans, planograms and store-specific data and performance information. After the implementation, Plantensive provided ongoing operational support and training to Rexall to assist with troubleshooting any issues, ensuring a smooth transition to Blue Yonder’s systems and tools.

Impact

  • Increased Revenue Opportunities: Rexall implemented analytic-driven floor plans that enhanced their space productivity. Through the development of targeted store floor plans, they achieved a consistent layout across all of their stores, identifying optimal space allocation opportunities for their products through the utilization of Blue Yonder’s newly integrated analytics.
  • Enhanced Margin Rates: The strategic placement of higher-margin categories led to increased profitability. This created more efficient and informed modifications of category positioning and identified the right-sizing space allocation for slow-moving products, helping avoid markdowns and out-of-date write-offs.
  • Inventory Reduction: The reduction of floor space for slow-moving categories, in both breadth and depth, created a leaner inventory that carried fewer slow-moving categories.
  • Operational Efficiency for Category Managers: Space and category management processes were streamlined and optimized through the elimination of redundant planogram maintenance tasks. This led to more efficient modifications that generated more informed product positioning, store adjustments and clustering.

In 2018, non-grocery retailers missed out on $300 billion in revenues — in the aggregate 12% of total sales — due to markdowns. Senior retail decision makers pinned the blame for more than half (53%) of unplanned markdowns on “inventory misjudgments. – Retail Dive