South African value retailer Ackermans deploys Oracle Retail Merchandise Financial Planning Cloud Service

Ackermans has announced implementation of the Oracle Retail Merchandise Financial Planning Cloud Service (MFP), replacing the former enterprise planning (EP) system.

The primary objective of the project was to replace the outdated EP system with Oracle MFP, a more robust and efficient solution tailored to meet the evolving needs of the business.

This necessitated a market evaluation to find a tool better suited to the company's needs. Following a tender and evaluation process, Oracle emerged as the ideal partner for this transition. 

“The transition to Oracle MFP represents a crucial improvement in our planning capabilities. 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,” says Imke Henning, Business & Systems Integration Manager at Ackermans.

The AI powered Oracle MFP application serves as a tool for product planners, planning managers, and central planning teams.

The solution is designed to set seasonal targets for various clothing categories and divisions (girls, boys, women, etc.), facilitate the approval process of plans between product planners and planning managers, develop comprehensive seasonal business plans, and monitor weekly performance of product divisions and categories against targets.

“The ability to partner at all levels of the organisation within Ackermans was instrumental in delivering a solution that met the requirements that allowed the business to seamlessly move from their legacy planning solution to Oracle,” says Bill Zacher, Chief Operating Officer, Retsci.

”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,” says Jeff Warren, Vice President, Global Retail Sales, Oracle.

“This is resulting in better outcomes for their inventory management process and customers.”