LONDON-- February 01, 2023 -- Board, a leading global provider of Intelligent Planning Solutions which help organizations plan smarter — enabling actionable insights and better outcomes, announces today it has been named as a Representative Vendor in the 2022 Gartner Market Guide for Retail Assortment Management Applications (RAMA): Short Life Cycle Products.

“This important recognition in the latest Gartner Market Guide, in our opinion, demonstrates Board’s crucial role in Retail Assortment Planning and Category Management as part of a retail digital transformation strategy,” said Marco Limena, CEO of Board. “Retail leaders are accelerating intelligent planning with Board, to deliver integrated retail commerce strategies, and transform vital merchandising and assortment processes.”

According to the report, “Retail assortment management applications are foundational for modernizing merchandising processes as part of a digital business transformation strategy in unified retail commerce. CIOs can use this research to identify RAMA solution vendors that can support the transformation.”

The Market Guide recommends that CIOs in retail digital transformation and innovation should partner with senior leadership to create an orchestrated merchandising process where Retail Assortment Management Applications (RAMAs) function as a hub of analysis, planning and execution replacing manual spreadsheet tools.

The full Gartner Market Guide is available here.

According to Gartner, “Retail assortment management applications (RAMAs) support unified commerce processes that are critical to the selection of products presented to the customer in line with their needs. The term “RAMA” is based on a “footprint” covering the high-level functions of advanced assortment planning for short life cycle products; for example, apparel, seasonal and specialty.”

According to the Market Guide produced by analysts Robert Hetu and Jonathan Kutner, as part of the Gartner Retail Digital Transformation and Innovation Initiative, “Retailers cannot continue with their traditional broad approach to assortments, as customers are demanding more curated assessments to match their lifestyles.”

The report recommends that CIOs “implement RAMAs to replace traditional approaches by ‘wedging’ and ‘clustering’ with ‘local’ assortments, which are site specific,” and highlights the strategic planning assumption that by “2024, Tier 1 retailers in North America and Europe will reduce inventory carrying costs by 30%, dramatically improving free cash for digital investments, while revamping balance sheets.”

Gartner disclaimer
Gartner, Market Guide for Retail Assortment Management Applications: Short Life Cycle Products, 21 November 2022, Robert Hetu, Jonathan Kutner

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