Global Footwear Company
Turning a data-entry tool into a planning tool
The challenge
Planners relied predominantly on Excel while an aging platform served mainly as a place to enter plans. Disconnected planning cycles made it difficult to account for starting inventory and understand the consequences of optimistic assumptions.
My approach
I first partnered with the business to keep planning data complete and available through a period of limited investment. When funding became available, I led requirements for a rebuild, selected vendors, staffed the effort, and worked with legal and procurement. We improved usability, brought in current sales data, automated more gross-to-net calculations, and enabled scenario planning around locked portions of a plan or a given topline. Regional collaboration helped align local operational needs with global reporting, while data science partnerships supported demand forecasting. The custom application combined model outputs with retail transaction and product data in an enterprise environment exceeding one million transactional records daily.
Reliability before new functionality
During a period with limited investment and no direct management chain, I worked with my business counterpart to keep planning data complete and available. Planning-cycle readiness took priority over new features. Once funding was available, I led requirements and vendor selection for the rebuild, working with legal and procurement and staffing the effort.
Resolving local and global needs
The EMEA team wanted its own tools for a different business case. We worked through the distinction between regional operational needs and global reporting needs and aligned on a unified direction. The decision required understanding the regional problem rather than simply enforcing a global implementation.
Making the tool useful for actual planning
The existing tool functioned largely as a data-entry mechanism. We brought in more current sales data, more gross-to-net calculations, and scenario planning, including the ability to lock part of a plan and work around a given topline. I mentored product owners while working with engineering, design, and data science; my role combined shaping the experience with enabling others to drive the work.
A better plan changed someone else’s assumptions
Connecting planning to inventory challenged optimistic assumptions in disconnected spreadsheets and required top-down business reinforcement. Less leftover inventory also affected the value channel, which depended on that surplus. This required broader cross-functional leadership involvement. Improving one planning process did not eliminate the need to manage its effects elsewhere.
The outcome
All North America Retail Planners—the target population—used the solution within 90 days of release. Better data helped shift planning from Excel into the platform. The broader initiative targeted a $33M–$54M EBITA opportunity through better retail plans, manufacturing aligned with forecast demand, and less unsold inventory. This was a financial target, not a realized result. Reduced surplus also required broader leadership coordination with the value channel that depended on that inventory.