Case study deck · 9 slides
Retail
A premium multi-outlet retail business
The challenge
Buyers ordered from memory across ~45,000 SKUs: a gift-set line reordered weekly out of habit while a fast-turning staple sat one refill from a stockout. Premium packaging is expensive to hold, and outlets were overstocked on slow-selling signature product while the flagship location ran out of staples at peak footfall. Inventory turnover wasn't moving no matter how much revenue grew.
The approach
We classified all ~45,000 SKUs on two axes: ABC for value contribution, FMSD for movement speed. Crossed together, every SKU lands in one of twenty cells, each implying a buying instruction, stock A-fast aggressively, phase out C-dead. Only once that grid existed did we fix what sat downstream: purchase pricing tied to market trends, buyer KPIs tied to turnover, and the ERP gaps that were delaying replenishment.
What we built
We redesigned the workflow around the model, then built the pieces that make it run every day.
ABC/FMSD classification of ~45,000 SKUs into a 20-cell grid
Buyer KPI scorecards tied to turnover and stockout rate
Purchase-price tracking feeding reorder decisions by SKU class
ERP process map closing gaps that delayed replenishment orders
Inside the build
Every SKU plotted by value contribution against movement speed, turning a 45,000-line catalog into a small set of visible decisions.
Tools & systems
Results
SKUs classified for inventory control
Reduction in tied-up inventory
Inventory visible and auditable across outlets
Orders flowing through the ERP without manual chasing
Figures here are representative of the retail inventory work we've delivered across similar multi-outlet specialty retailers, not a single audited client report.
How it stuck
Buyers now work a ranked queue instead of scanning every SKU: fast movers first, always. The high-value slow movers, gift sets and specialty lines quietly parking cash, got a deliberate review instead of an automatic reorder, which is where most of the cash reduction came from. The KPIs and the grid point at the same numbers, so habit-based reordering shows up immediately in a buyer's own scorecard.
“I used to know my slow movers by which ones I was tired of looking at on the shelf. Now I know them by a number, and that number tells me which to stop ordering.”
Head of Category Purchasing
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