Making Size Matter

Foschini Limited is a South African investment holding company with a core focus on retail and financial services. The company consists of 1,300 stores in 13 trading divisions selling lifestyle products ranging from fashion, jewelry, accessories, cosmetics, sporting and outdoor apparel to housewares under the brand names Foschini, Donna Clare, Fashion Express, Markham, exact!, @home, Matrix and Due South.

 

After expanding into Botswana, Swaziland and Namibia, the company realized it needed sophisticated technology to enable targeted ranges and size scaling for all of its trading groups. Foschini partnered with JDA Software Group to increase profits with reduced markdowns, improved data accuracy and more efficient, accurate distribution of products in the right mix of sizes to the right store.

 

Foschini has implemented JDA Allocation, Arthur Knowledge Base and Portfolio Merchandise Management (PMM). The new software enables Foschini to plan ranges that meet local demand more accurately. JDA Size Scaling recently was implemented in the company's 160-store Markham chain to measure sales patterns and view demand for each particular size by location, ensuring that the right quantities for all sizes are delivered to the appropriate store.

 

The company's Foschini brand, with close to 200 stores, is responsible for roughly 45 percent of the company's annual sales of $7 billion rand or $1.02 billion USD. By addressing two critical merchandise management challenges - size demand by location and forecast estimates for following seasons - JDA Size Scaling enables Foschini to enjoy more accurate allocation of products to locations resulting in a significant increase in sales and reductions in markdowns.

 

JDA Allocation also is now being used by all of the major Foschini apparel divisions and JDA Size Scaling was recently implemented in the 160 store Markham chain, with plans for another three retail divisions by the end of 2007.