RELEX Unveils Category Management Solution
RELEX Solutions has introduced a modern approach to category reviews with RELEX Space for Category Management. Built within a cloud-native interface, RELEX Space empowers retailers to optimize merchandising plans to deliver the right products at the right time and place, meeting consumer demand while maximizing sales and profitability.
RELEX is a provider of a unified supply chain and retail-planning platform that aligns and optimizes demand, merchandising, supply chain, operations and production planning across the end-to-end value chain. It currently works with such companies as ADUSA, Dollar Tree and Family Dollar, and M&S Food.
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The new RELEX Space for Category Management solution strategically optimizes shelf space allocation and provides insights into category adjacencies, ensuring that popular categories have enough space to meet customer demand. Automating and optimizing planogram updates using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning reduces time-consuming manual processes and enables retailers to reflect current sales trends, customer preferences and seasonal variations.
RELEX Space for Category Management also fosters cross-functional collaboration, allowing supply chain and merchandising teams to plan and develop a category management strategy, and make decisions seamlessly. By connecting and leveraging space, labor, inventory and forecast data, planners can assess the true cost to serve and how to grow revenue, according to the company.
“Retailers often struggle with the sheer volume of sales, inventory and customer behavior data required for effective category management and space planning. Couple that with needing to determine optimal shelf space allocation for each category to maximize sales and profitability, and you have a complex challenge to solve,” said Tommi Ylinen, chief product officer at Atlanta-based RELEX Solutions. “Our new capabilities address these challenges through a unified approach, which helps to improve inventory and on-shelf availability through data-driven decision-making while boosting sales and meeting consumer demand.”
New capabilities include:
- A cloud-native solution that allows for easy deployment of new features and updates without lengthy downtime or complex migration processes, reducing the total cost of ownership for customers.
- An intuitive user interface that simplifies planogram and floor plan management for space planners, allowing retailers to focus more on strategic decision-making.
- An improved workflow selection and management process to support user adoption.
- A sandbox environment so planners can conduct multiple category or location reviews simultaneously.
- A more automated process for reviewing and publishing planograms, reducing the risk of errors and driving greater efficiency.
RELEX Space for Category Management also integrates with RELEX forecasting and replenishment solutions. This allows data to be shared and updated in near real time, ensuring that inventory levels are optimized and shelf space allocation aligns with demand forecasts. According to the company, this integration shifts category managers from operational to proactive, enabling them to respond swiftly to market demands and maximize business outcomes.
“We are very happy with the new capabilities being announced today, aimed at optimizing retail space and product assortments more effectively,” said Andy Rigby, COO of U.K. grocer East of England Co-op, which is based in Ipswich. “New innovations like the safe ‘sandbox’ environment for testing new planograms and the ability to manage multiple simultaneous category or location reviews give us greater flexibility and control. These features enable us to develop more precise and tailored category management strategies, supporting our goal of improving sales and customer satisfaction.”
