TAKKO Holding GmbH
.jpg)
Staying on course for growth in the fashion market requires not only a high-turnover omni-channel retailer, but also efficient merchandise and article planning. Takko Fashion saw potential for optimization in this area, as planning had previously involved a great deal of manual effort in Excel. However, Takko Fashion did not want to throw its specific planning processes overboard, so it was looking for a new tool that would integrate planning, analysis and reporting in a standardized platform while also providing the flexibility to optimally map its own business processes.
After exploring the market, Takko decided to work with our experts to develop an integrated solution for merchandise and product range planning based on Board. After just three months, the merchandise financial planning solution went live. This was followed by the implementation of assortment planning with a direct interface to order management. Today, the end-to-end solution ensures significantly more efficient merchandise management and assortment planning.
The Company: Smart Discounter
Takko Fashion offers casual fashion for the whole family. The company positions itself as a smart discounter, focuses on omnichannel retailing, and lets its customers decide for themselves how, where, and when they buy their clothes.
With nearly 1,900 stores in 17 countries and almost 18,000 employees worldwide, Takko Fashion is one of Europe’s largest fashion discounters.
With a wide range of products and strong private labels, Takko Fashion is committed to delivering a seamless shopping experience across all channels.
The facts at a glance:
✓ Assortment planning, including an MFP solution
✓ Integration with operational product and order management
✓ Customized solution
✓ Flexible planning process
✓ Simulation and versioning
✓ Monthly rolling forecast
✓ Comprehensive metrics system for performance measurement
The Challenge: Flexible Planning Processes Instead of Excel Chaos
Over time, Takko had developed an Excel-based system that, due to the company’s steady expansion, was increasingly producing inconsistencies in planning. This led to a rise in the manual effort required to keep the management summary error-free. “Especially in light of the ever-increasing volume of data, we were reaching the limits of what was feasible in Excel,” explains Bernhard Westphal, Senior Director of Planning & Allocation at Takko Fashion. “Just consider our product range planning alone, where we manage several thousand items—it simply became too complex to manage in Excel, which also increased the likelihood of errors.”
The new tool needed to adapt as flexibly as possible to Takko’s planning processes, not the other way around. “It quickly became clear to us that we had very high expectations when selecting the software. The tool was supposed to enable integrated merchandise and product planning with a single point of truth and a consistent look and feel, while providing analysis and reporting capabilities and being flexible enough to map our processes as optimally as possible.”
The Solution: An All-in-One Platform as the Ideal Solution
To gain as detailed an overview as possible of the tools under consideration, Takko Fashion invited various vendors and consulting firms to participate in a series of PoCs (“Proof of Concept”), including demonstrations of Takko-specific module logic, automatic allocation, and batch calculation of quantities for stores. “In the PoC, celver’s all-in-one platform Board impressed us the most; on the one hand, because celver’s planning experts have a comprehensive understanding of the fashion and retail industry, and on the other, because they gave us, as customers, the impression that with Board, we could develop exactly the right solution for merchandise and item planning that takes our specific requirements into account,” says Bernhard Westphal.
Takko and celver began implementing the Merchandise Financial Planning (MFP) solution, and within three months, the merchandise planning system went live. It includes sales, goods receipt, inventory, and margin planning with a rolling forecast featuring over 50 metrics, some of which are highly complex. “It was amazing how quickly the solution was implemented by celver using Board, in close collaboration with us,” reports Bernhard Westphal. “We had very specific requirements for the MFP solution, and to be honest, we were surprised that we didn’t have to plan the next season using Excel anymore.”
The MFP project was followed by the implementation of the assortment planning solution, which features a direct interface to the product and order management system. “From the very beginning, it was important to us not just to have an isolated planning solution, but we also wanted an interface to the operational system so that we could view the plan in Board on one hand, but also analyze the current actual figures on the other, allowing us to map a plan-actual comparison in a single system,” says Bernhard Westphal.
“Many providers offer basic planning solutions, but few systems can actually show us where we stand, what we’ve planned, and what we’re currently planning to do. This really helps us make progress in assortment planning, especially when it’s supported by best-seller, slow-mover, and potential analyses, as well as OTB management, as is the case with Board.”
In addition to improved data quality and consistency, Takko Fashion expected the Board solution—which is now used by over 100 users—to deliver greater agility and reduce the workload for everyone involved. “We used to rely on three different systems just for product range planning; now everything is consolidated into a single system,” says Bernhard Westphal.
Beate Döker, the project’s IT manager, adds: “Working with celver in this highly heterogeneous system environment was straightforward from the start, yet at the same time very professional. Ultimately, we had to synchronize several complex sub-projects at once, involving our data warehouse and the connected product and order management system. From the very beginning, this took place on a working level that was well-structured and based on partnership .”
Reduced error rates thanks to a single point of truth, greater automation through integrated workflow management, and more detailed planning and simulations—these are just a few of the benefits that make the Board solution a perfect fit for Takko Fashion’s needs. “Above all, the trusting collaboration with celver and our employees was excellent and very fruitful throughout the project. We appreciate celver’s approach of combining technical expertise with tool proficiency in solution-oriented consulting. This simply gave everyone involved the confidence that we were working with the right partner,” concludes Bernhard Westphal.
Your contact person
.png)
