Hunkemöller More Accurately Plans and Positions Inventory with New Allocation and Replenishment Technology
With the support of Columbus Consulting International, Hunkemöller improved its omni-channel capabilities to support global expansion and enable better customer service
LONDON and COLUMBUS, OHIO – Sept. 17, 2019 – Columbus Consulting International, a leading retail consulting firm, today announced its completed implementation of a new allocation and replenishment technology for Hunkemöller, Europe’s fastest growing lingerie brand. Over the next five years, Hunkemöller expects to double its sales volumes through better optimized inventory.
Hunkemöller is already recognized as an industry-leading omni-channel retailer, and critical to maintaining its world-class customer experience is ensuring that the carefully curated assortment is well-represented across Hunkemöller’s growing portfolio. With 920 stores across 20 countries, Hunkemöller has a vision to grow to 1,300 stores, and to do so, the retailer recognized the need for improved and automated planning capabilities.
More than 30% of Hunkemöller’s products are considered winning, “never out-of-stock” lines. These product lines have consistently had excellent availability, but the teams needed to rebalance the distribution of these continuity products across more geographies, channels and locations, while continuing to maintain availability. The company needed a solution to allow for the refinement of initial allocations to make better use of replenishment stock to where it is most demanded by the customer. Additionally, each country has specific product preferences and lingerie tastes that have to be considered in allocation and replenishment, requiring tailored assortments and understanding of massive amounts of SKU-level data. Hunkemöller also wanted to achieve the growth without additional headcount, as doubling store count would necessitate the hiring of more allocators if it was to continue with former processes.
In recognizing that technology would be a key driver in delivering on its vision, Hunkemöller sought the expertise of Columbus Consulting as a strategic partner. Columbus Consulting first aided Hunkemöller in defining the business case to present to its board of directors, and then co-led the vendor selection process and supported the implementation of the chosen solution. Logility Voyager Solutions™ was selected as the solution of choice to be presented to Hunkemöller’s leadership, who gave the green light to move forward with implementation.
Leveraging its data, Hunkemöller is now equipped to make better, more customer-focused decisions by automating many of its allocation and replenishment processes. The new process gives the retailer the flexibility to adjust stock levels per store at the product and attribute level, replenishing and reserving inventory each day to prioritize each store’s requirements.
“By working with Columbus Consulting, we were able to identify and implement an allocation and replenishment partner technology to further improve our omni-channel capabilities,” said Nick Bailey, global merchandising, planning and distribution director, Hunkemöller. “The expertise of the Columbus Consulting team is unmatched – any software delivery has bumps along the way, but the team helped us to make timely and informed decisions to keep the project moving. The partnership throughout this process has been hugely beneficial.”
Hunkemöller is now more accurately positioning inventory, ensuring availability in the right stores to increase full-price sales, and has enabled better customer service. The retailer will continue its partnership with Columbus Consulting to improve forecasting and purchasing requirements.
For more information on the project, download Columbus Consulting’s case study, “Hunkemöller’s Strategic Growth Supported Through New Allocation and Replenishment Technology.”
Columbus Consulting will showcase its work with retailers like Hunkemöller this week at Unified Retailing in London, bringing together the industry’s brightest minds to discuss balancing customer experience and profitability.
About Hunkemöller
Hunkemöller is Europe’s leading and fastest growing lingerie brand, with 920 stores across 20 countries. The company was founded in Amsterdam in 1886 and has since developed into a pan-European omni-channel lingerie brand. Hunkemöller delivers perfect fitting, fashionable and high quality bodywear products (across bras, underwear, nightwear, swimwear and other categories including sport). Hunkemöller is a truly omni-channel retailer and has integrated technology into every aspect of the business; from extensive customer profiling based on an extensive base of active loyalty program members, to a digitalized recruitment and training process for retail employees. The customer journey is at the heart of Hunkemöller’s strategy and has resulted in a seamless interaction between the physical and digital environment through its click2brick initiatives. In 2018, Hunkemöller was voted Best Lingerie Retailer of the Year in the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and Belgium. The lingerie brand also won the Web Shop of the Year Award in the Netherlands.
Hunkemöller is owned by Carlyle for c. 85% and, for the remaining part, by a management holding entity (Stichting HKM Holding).
About Columbus Consulting International
Founded in 2001, Columbus Consulting comprises a team of highly experienced specialists in retail systems and processes. We combine pragmatism, innovation and years of experience to deliver services ranging from strategic insight to tactical project delivery. Our experience stems from holding executive responsibility in retail, and from successfully managing some of the most challenging projects in the industry. To learn more, visit www.columbusconsulting.com.
Media Contact
Amanda Reed
Ketner Group Communications (for Columbus Consulting)
512-794-8876
