Zadig & Voltaire Reimagines Retail Planning and Allocation

Zadig & Voltaire now has a centralized planning platform to unify its buying, allocation and replenishment processes across its stores and online channel.

The ready-to-wear brand founded in 1997 by Thierry Gillier has recently gone live with Aptos’  Allocation & Replenishment and Commercial Buying Session solutions. The Parisian house has grown consistently to reach over 350 points of sale across more than 30 countries throughout Europe, Asia and the United States. In addition to its stores, Zadig & Voltaire merchandise is available through its website, www.zadig-et-voltaire.com, and through select retailer partners worldwide.

As its commercial enterprise has grown, both in scale and complexity, Zadig & Voltaire recognized the need to optimize its retail planning activities aligned with its multi-channel distribution strategy.

“In the past, our planning and buying activities were highly fragmented and supported by heterogeneous systems,” notes Nicolas Gand, COO at Zadig & Voltaire. “With Aptos’ platform, we benefit from an end-to-end automated process that frees up time for buyers, planners and the supply chain team while optimizing inventory levels and positioning throughout our network.

“All users of the Aptos system – we have more than 30 currently – are contributing to a single, integrated workflow,” Gand added. “With the pandemic calling for new levels of resiliency and a stronger omnichannel presence, Aptos has helped us to digitalize key processes, such as buying, as well as to plan merchandise for stores and online in a much more efficient and customer-centric manner.”

With Aptos’ Planning solution, Zadig & Voltaire can handle a complete range of critical merchandise planning functions easily and effectively including the generation of product plans, product buys, through product delivery. Once merchandise financial targets are set within Aptos Merchandise Financial Planning, Zadig & Voltaire utilizes Aptos’ Commercial Buying Session solution. Zadig & Voltaire’s territory managers who visit the showrooms will select the ideal mix of products for their territory, and strategically place orders.

Given the current norms of social distancing and reduced business travel, Aptos’ Commercial Buying Session also offers the option for buyers to virtually navigate the collection and select the best products for their specific locales.

As product nears delivery, Zadig & Voltaire relies on the solution to execute the initial allocation against the assortment plan and local needs, automatically replenish additional product to locations based on sales trends and forecasts, and then reallocate remaining products to specific locations to maximize sales, margins and inventory velocity as the product lifecycle progresses.

“As retailing becomes more global and consumers adopt a digital-first approach, retailers have to prioritize digital transformation in a way that streamlines operations and brings the business closer to the needs of the consumer,” said Aptos President and COO Steve Towe.

“Zadig & Voltaire is doing just that as they build a global, omnichannel-ready retail model. The strength of our collaboration with this customer, the expertise of their team, and the critical importance of this project led to a successful and accelerated implementation, despite constraints caused by COVID. Aptos greatly values our relationship with this rock ‘n’ roll inspired retailer,” Towe concluded.