South African clothing retailer Ackermans has implemented Oracle Retail’s MFP merchandise financial planning cloud service, replacing the former enterprise planning (EP) system.

The goal was to enhance operational efficiency and support its planning teams by replacing the outdated EP system with MFP, said to be more robust and efficient, and tailored to meet the evolving needs of the business. This necessitated a thorough market evaluation to find a tool better suited to the company’s needs. Following a tender and evaluation process, Oracle emerged as the partner for this transition.

“The transition to Oracle MFP represents a crucial improvement in our planning capabilities,” said Imke Henning, business integration manager at Ackermans. “We are confident that this upgrade will enhance our operational efficiency and provide our customers with a better shopping experience through improved product availability and planning accuracy.”

The AI-powered MFP application serves as a tool for product planners, planning managers and central planning teams. It is designed to set seasonal targets for various clothing categories and divisions (girls, boys, women and so on), facilitate the approval process of plans between product planners and planning managers, develop seasonal business plans, and monitor weekly performance of product divisions and categories against targets.

Stakeholders impacted by the MFP upgrade – specifically customers and employees – can experience improved efficiency and accuracy of merchandise financial planning, supported by a better-managed inventory that leverages planning tools to streamline processes and help reduce system maintenance time.

The technical and operational benefits of Oracle MFP can include efficient resource use, reduced processing time by more than half, and continuous real-time updates with few disruptions in business operations.

Ackermans worked closely with Oracle partner network member Retsci (retsci.com) to implement the cloud MFP.

“The ability to partner at all levels of the organisation within Ackermans was instrumental in meeting the requirements that allowed the business to seamlessly move from their legacy planning to Oracle,” said Bill Zacher, chief operating officer at Retsci.

Jeff Warren, vice president at Oracle, added: “With Oracle Cloud for Retail, Ackermans is driving greater financial accuracy through pre-season and in-season planning while creating greater operational efficiencies and alignment across all their planning teams. This is resulting in better outcomes for their inventory management process and customers.”

Ackermans (www.ackermans.co.za) was founded in 1916 when Gus Ackerman opened the doors to the first store in Wynberg, Cape Town. Today, there are more than 1000 Ackermans stores in five countries.

Texas-based Oracle (www.oracle.com) offers integrated suites of applications plus secure, autonomous infrastructure in the Oracle Cloud.