Accelerating allocation and replenishment at Missoni

Missoni, a luxury Italian fashion brand, operates globally with a significant presence in Europe and Northern America through three key channels: boutiques, outlets, and e-commerce channels. The company is renowned for its high levels of craftsmanship and its innovative approach to both product design and business management.

The fashion industry has been undergoing rapid changes, particularly with the rise of fast fashion. Today, luxury fashion houses like Missoni recognize the importance of a customer-focused approach where fast-evolving customer preferences and trends demand exceptional flexibility and swift responsiveness.

A new approach to allocation and replenishment

In response to these industry dynamics, Missoni decided to revamp its allocation and replenishment processes to enhance flexibility and responsiveness. By automating time-consuming, low-value tasks, the company aimed to boost in-store performance. This transformation entailed significant organizational change, involving a comprehensive change management process, and a technical overhaul of how data was managed and integrated across various systems and functions.

The most pressing need was to refine processes. To improve warehouse inventory management and in-store service levels, Missoni required a planning solution fully integrated with the company's systems. This solution needed to automate previously offline or spreadsheet-managed processes and be adaptable to future business needs, capable of evolving with the complexities of Missoni's allocation and replenishment processes. It was essential to have software that was not confined by predefined modules but could evolve alongside business processes.

Flexible, enhanced business performance with Board

Board, initially implemented as a pilot project, demonstrated its adaptability to Missoni's needs. The system was developed from scratch to manage the unique characteristics of different products and markets. Board allowed Missoni to manage its business operations flexibly throughout the year and was notable for its swift implementation—in just three months, a basic system with shared logics was activated. This system was then continually improved and refined to adapt to any changes.

The allocation and replenishment solution from Board has significantly enhanced Missoni's business performance by:

• increasing in-store availability, leading to higher sales performance
• improving stock management in regional warehouses
• accelerating replenishment of goods in stores
• differentiating replenishment strategies between "boutique" and "outlet" sales channels
• automating replenishment processes, allowing staff to focus on high-value activities rather than inefficient tasks, particularly during peak sales periods

“Board allows us to have all the KPIs and analyses on a single screen, enabling us to quickly develop product delivery plans across different stores and channels throughout the life cycle of our collections," highlights Denisse Ayala, Retail Coordinator at Missoni.

Future expansion and integration plans

Looking ahead, Missoni plans to extend the use of Board to its e-commerce channel, implementing channel-specific strategies and stabilizing current allocation and replenishment processes for boutiques and outlets. This will include providing the tool to points of sale and automating order validation and export processes. Board will also be leveraged for automating Store to Store Transfer processes and managing central-to-regional warehouse replenishment, further integrating the platform with business processes.