PI Apparel Spotlight: Planning for the Unpredictable

Hello everyone and welcome back to another Pyaparrot Spotlight. Our focus today is on planning resilience, or more specifically, is your planning process built to bend or to break? In a landscape defined by unpredictable demand, global instability, and ever-shifting consumers, planning can no longer be a rigid exercise. It has to evolve into an agile, collaborative, data-driven engine that helps brands pivot with confidence when reality changes. And in today's conversation, we'll explore how leading teams are doing just that. Transforming planning from static forecasts into dynamic strategies that balance instinct with intelligence, partnership with flexibility, and short-term fixes with long-term resets. We're thrilled today to be joined by an outstanding panel of speakers. Thank you for joining us, who I will pass to momentarily. So a big thank you to them, but also to everyone in our audience who is joining us today. Before I pass you over, just a couple of quick housekeeping notes. So if you have any questions that you'd like to ask the the panel, please feel free to pop them in the chat box that you should be able to see on your screen, or alternatively you can email me directly at mkr@pi.tv. That's M for Mike, K for Kilo, R for Romeo, @pi.tv. And if you miss anything or want to revisit the discussion later, please know that this session will, this session will be made available on demand via Seamless and also on our Pi Apparel YouTube channel very soon. Lastly, I want to flag that today's session is a teaser of what we have coming up at our merchandise Planning Europe event that's happening in London in October. So if today does spark any ideas, um, or inspires you, you'll definitely want to be there if you can make it. But for now, let's get into it. So I'd like to welcome to the stage our panelists Sandeep, Kira, Emma, Carolina, and Francis. Over to you.

Thank you very much, Michael, um, and welcome to this really interesting, uh, panel that we've got. So I am Sandeep July. I Currently, I'm the co-founder of Bite Size Merchandising, a merchandising consultancy firm, and I have over 25 years' experience working within the merchandising industry in the UK. If I can ask my fellow panelists to introduce themselves. Frances, first of all.

Hi, I'm Frances. I'm the Director of Buying and Merchandise Planning for Fabletics in Europe. Planning for the unpredictable has been the last 12 years of my life, working across e-commerce to startups and working in different countries and with different kind of international teams and everything in between.

Thanks, Frances. And Kira?

Thanks, Sandeep. My name is Kira Ghanan, and I am the global GM, senior vice president for Delta Galile, running the Ralph Lauren brands for them. That's specific to sleepwear and intimates categories. I've spent the last 27 years leading sales and merchandising teams for large global brands, including Ralph Lauren and Levi's, amongst a few others. And it's a constant effort to collaborate cross-functionally to ensure that we are doing everything we can to not break the planning process, which for organizations the size that I've worked for, could be a very damaging thing if we didn't get it together. So I'm excited to chat with all of you guys and thanks for having me.

Thanks, Kira. And Carolina.

Hi, my name is Carolina. I'm currently planning director at Tibi in New York. I've been— this has been the only career I've ever done. So 13 years, 3 countries, very, very different types of businesses from department stores, e-commerce, now in a sort of smaller luxury space. In terms of our topic today, I think especially on the topic of collaboration, my last 5 years in smaller companies are really just a constant proof of how teams should collaborate and how it's so, so crucial to the business that we all are on the same page.

Thanks, Carolina. And last but definitely not least, Emma.

Hi, I'm Emma. I'm the GM of Planning at Happy Socks. I've also worked across 3 countries now: London, New York, and now Stockholm. Gone from big, big boxes, from the Arcadias and Hugo Bosses of the world, and now I love working with smaller brands because you definitely get to be more stuck in. I don't know that my planning has ever come out the way I predicted because so many things change and happen, right? We always— I feel like we have the toughest jobs because we can never predict exactly how the world is going to go. So I'm super excited to not only discuss some of the challenges that I've overcome, but learn from others.

Thank you very much all. Yeah, definitely. I think we all agree that we've all been planning for the unpredictable for probably the whole of our careers. So let me get straight to the first point that we've got. So the first one was from static to agile. So the question was, the old model of rigid seasonal planning is breaking down. So how do we move from static long-range plans to agile, more iterative cycles that allow for real-time pivots? Why don't we start with you, Frances?

Yeah, definitely. So I think for me, in terms of the way that we used to plan. When I started my career, we were planning for full kind of halves of the year. We were front-loading our stock. We were having transitional buys and we were planning to sell winter coats in winter, really from August until January. And life just doesn't work like that. I think people move and live faster lives themselves and are kind of looking for more buy now, wear now. But also we're getting a lot of trends coming from places like TikTok and social media, and people see things, they go viral. We all want to buy them and feel part of that moment in the moment. We don't want to wait another 6 months for that to appear on the shop floor. So I think that that's the way that the world is changing and the way that I think that we can react to it. One thing we do at Fabletics is we plan more now into quarters of the year. So we're planning into these 3-month chunks, which means that we can churn through stock a little bit faster. We can move on to the next trend a little bit faster and have a little bit more reaction time. We're trying to speed up our buying process as much as possible. So kind of using key shapes as much as possible, but then building in colour trends, which there you're not redesigning something with the factory, you're just building into something that you already have to react as quickly as possible. And then I think kind of the old The way that we always planned was we would always try and keep 20% of our open to buy to buy in season. We would always spend it upfront. But I think it's really trying to be strict with that open to buy piece. Keep that available, keep that space available and that money available so that you can react to trends. I think brands that are buying completely upfront now and have no money left to buy in season are the ones who are going to miss out in the future.

Yeah, I totally agree on that last point. Emma, do you have anything to talk about here? I saw you nodding along.

No, I mean, I definitely align with you on some of the challenges that you've had to overcome. You know, at Happy Socks, about a year ago, we kind of re— we pulled apart our entire end-to-end timeline. So we were no longer working towards this long 18-month timeline that we had, and we split it into long, midterm, and short-term timelines. So that we could not just like from a financial point of view ensure that we're leaving space to react to trends, but actually from a process point of view, be ready to react to those trends. Re-looking at our sourcing, you know, where can we get faster production times from? How can we be more agile from a design point of view? Working with our B2B partners as well, because that often can be quite tricky of how do we get them to save a little bit of open-to-buy so that when we have these additional ranges to sell in, they're also ready to pick them up.

Yeah, it's interesting, Emma, you bring that up because I was thinking the same thing, like really the key to this collaboration or the key to this is really collaboration and organizational nimbleness. You know, there's, there's one thing to tear apart that end-to-end process like you mentioned, but if the whole organization isn't on the same page with that or has different objectives more aligned with maybe their function, it doesn't really matter. So I think clear leadership, objective setting, like it all kind of starts internal in order to be able to externally win.

100%.

Yeah, totally agree. And that's actually quite neatly segued into that next question, which was building flexibility into teams and processes and how teams and processes often struggle to keep up with the change. What do we think are the most effective ways to build flexibility into sort of planning structures so they can bend with about breaking, so to speak. Vera, do you have any from the—

I love the bending and not breaking. I think we practice that in our lives, don't we? We're always trying to bend without breaking.

It's like this constant.

But I do think a lot of challenges with, you know, I mean, arguably this is beyond planning. It's with many processes, particularly in matrix environments, which I think we're all sort of navigating at this point is not giving your teams the autonomy to pivot quickly. So, if it becomes too clunky, if we're not flexible in making change, particularly in how we operate, nobody can keep up with what's going on in the market. So, I think that that's a very important piece in building flexibility is ensuring that your teams have the autonomy to make an adjustment.

[Speaker:JAMES] When they've got rigid processes, that's where the problems arise. If they're like, "This is how we always do it." So to give them that freedom is something which can be a bit scary sometimes for some teams, but it's like, how do we give them the confidence to be able to do that?

Right. And I also think that, Emma, you mentioned something too that was stuck with me is really driving more short-term planning, or was that— but I think short-term planning is a big impact here in building flexibility. As I mentioned, I've worked with large global brands and we have 14, 16-month timelines. I mean, we're doing things so far in advance. You can't really accurately pinpoint your progress to the objectives until you're way in the weeds of it. So stronger cross-functional efforts in like fabric platforming, creative uses of liability and fabric and trims, separating planning processes for carryover and fashion. So these are all flexible levers that I think we all need to get a lot better at.

I remember—

Sorry, I was going to say, I remember once we had skinny jeans when they were a trend and we bought so many of these and we had so much stock liability. And I just asked the warehouse if they could slash all the knees so that we could then create a new SKU when they were knee-ripped jeans. So I think it is about being quite creative and quite flexible with the stock that you have and reacting to those situations. Crazy.

We've done it with shorts at some point. We made long denim into shorts because, well, summer was coming. But also to come back to the like short-term planning, it's because we all have crazy lead times. It's at this point, unless you're like super ultra fast fashion, you're working with lead times that are still too long. Like I'm at this point, sometimes I have Italian mills that take 3, 4 months just for the fabric. So by the time I can change any, like it's 8 months by the time I can change anything, especially that like I work for a smaller brand, which means we're often not prioritized. Um, so I, I force a monthly forecast. I hate having to do even like a quarter. I don't care. I will work with, I will have a budget and I will always work with a monthly forecast and it always coming. Cause I always find that we'll probably make the, like most of the time make the budget. It's just in such a different way than we thought. Hmm.

Yeah. We've done exactly the same thing. I now insist on working on a monthly basis. I want to buy monthly. I want to review the sales monthly and I want us to be on top of what's not working and, you know, how do we react and get out of any commitment that we've got, but then also be all over what is working and how do we get more, how do we get more SKUs, you know, when can we get it in, etc. I think, um, to the point of, you know, giving people the autonomy to make the decisions, every stakeholder across the business needs to be bought into this way of thinking. But every team member needs to have the confidence and, you know, the want to go and make these decisions. So if you're working within a culture of fear, you know, if we make a I don't want to put that first step forward. It's all about, it doesn't matter if we make a mistake because we're also at the same time gaining so many wins. That's life. So I think it's super, super important to have everybody feeling good about making these decisions and that everyone's on the same page.

I feel like this leads into the next question, but I agree with you, Emma, and it's also getting the buy-in from kind of the finance team and the logistics team that you can work on this monthly cadence as well.

Yeah, totally agree. That was, that's quite neatly going into that next collaboration. I mean, it's the best thing within Teams, and it definitely gives us a competitive advantage. You've got to make sure we're not working in a silo. And, you know, it's very easy for us within the merch planning business to sit there and get our heads down, but actually we need to make sure, you know, we're cross-functional, we're collaborating cross-functional. So, of course, finance, marketing, most importantly, operations and production. And how does this look in practice? How do we get there? Carolina, do you have some points on that? Because I think that's something you touched on earlier as well.

Yeah, I think even though I've seen it in companies that I worked for as well, that sometimes it's such a— like, it is a siloed function, but it shouldn't have never been in the first place. I think We have to come from a place of believing that people are there for a reason. They got their jobs for a reason. And truly, like, try to come from a place of more of like a human than, "I've got those numbers and this is it. This is where I'm stuck." And I think the monthly forecast really helps people to understand where I'm coming from, why I need this information, how does it affect the company. I'm not just there to like get the numbers and push them to finance. Like that's where I think the most often struggle I've seen throughout my career is the marketing team. It's always hard. Very often the only thing, the main picture in the, in like a photo shoot would be something that we never produced. Not here in Tibi, but in the past. It's like, great. We made that one sample just to make it look pretty. All over the marketing. So those things like that, that have to be true. Like, I feel like that's where you have to be really on the same page. I think, um, and again, I'm like obsessed with the monthly forecast, but everyone knows when I have to do it because I'm going to be coming to you and logistics have to give me, even though they will do their updates, like what's most up to date as of today, what's coming, what's late. What's going to be featured for marketing? Can you feature this? Because even though, I don't know, we planned more of a, like, a pretty and creative campaigns this month, I need something more commercial because we've had tough couple of weeks. All, all that information feeds into what I can tell finance what's going to happen. And I feel also recent few months pushed it to like a next level where, um, my collaboration with like logistics was more getting information. Like, can we push this forward? Can we push it back a little bit? I got to the point, I was like, okay, it's gonna come on 25th of the month. Can it come to the 1st of the month? So my tariff, so our tariff bill comes next month. Things like that. Like that's, so we dialed it up even further. But I think when people understand why you need something, so I always try to do that in any kind of email where I need stuff. It's like, okay, this is how it's going to affect me. Can you give me your best information knowing why I need it? Not just I need it, if that makes sense.

How does that work with— no, it all makes sense. And it kind of touches on our first, on our second point about flexibility in teams and processes. How do we think that whole collaboration piece works, especially with the production and design teams? Because I guess they can be very protective about what they're doing and when stuff is coming in. And if you're going in with the monthly reforecast and asking for changes, have any of you had any challenges with that? I know I have in the past. Oh yeah.

I mean, I think this is like where things start to break down a little bit. You know, you're only as good as the weakest link on the team. So really ensuring that the teams understand everyone's role underneath that high-level objective, I think, is like where you find the most successful planning functions and overall, you know, brand or retail experiences. So in my world, I think about, and as I have, you know, oversight onto all of the functions, merchandising briefs, design designs, product development builds, planning buys either based on demand or forecast, and production executes. This is very simple, but I think one's job doesn't end when the other begins. Um, and so where I've found the most success is making sure that the merch function is watching the entire pipeline so they, they can see a vision executed. Design watches that entire pipeline to inform what's going to happen in the future. PD, so that they can help pivot as new ideas pass. And planning watches the entire pipeline to under and understand the intent as they review the data. Because those organizations that only look at hindsight data never move forward. Right? And sometimes, I mean, I was in one for a while. I mean, at Levi's, we had a really hard time looking to the future because the past was so strong. We had so many years of history that the future was like an afterthought. But the minute we started to look at the future in a different way based on all those other cross-functional partners like providing insight, The world opened up a little bit. We started to gain market share in women's. We started to like become more of a fashion resource and start doing collaborations with important designers. So I just think that it's never like a single silo. And I think Carolina, you mentioned that like the siloing of that is really damaging to the success of a planning organization.

So I sometimes feel more like a project manager than a planner.

Yeah, I can see that.

There's definitely a big piece about it can become them and us. And every team then feels it's them versus us. And it's how do we make it all us? And it's how do we work with that alongside everyone and manage it? And you're right, merch planning is definitely project management because we are responsible for watching the whole circle of it, the whole cycle, the whole critical path and managing that and helping the teams, supporters and certain work along from there. It can definitely be quite tricky at times, I think. Has anyone come up with any, like, has anyone had any great ways to solve that kind of collaboration issue and how we can make sure that everyone's on the same page?

I honestly think put the teams next to each other. It sounds crazy, but I've worked in businesses where like the planning team sits so far away from the buying team and you feel like we're in charge because we've got to hit the financial targets and then you stop collaborating with these people. And I think that's, for me, is number one, is to sit next to each other, listen to what they're saying, listen to what they're seeing in the trends, really be engaged. I think like a good merchandiser could be an okay buyer and a good buyer could be an okay merchandiser. And it needs to be that kind of collaborative partnership between yourself and the buying team and then further to the design teams as well.

Yeah, I totally agree. It's all about partnering. I don't want to use that old-fashioned term of husband and wife, But it's that kind of mix of, you know, you've got to make sure you're working together and pushing and pulling at one another at the best of times.

Are you saying no more remote, Frances? I'm confused.

I mean, I feel like hybrid works for people, but even still, there's ways to work remotely and still be engaged with your buying team. I think it can be— sometimes I've worked in businesses where it's just so numbers-focused on the planning side. You really like lock yourself away, you do all the numbers, and then you go to the buyers and you're like, this is what you have to buy. And there's no room for them to give you trend insights. There's no room for them to give you any kind of design guidance. It's just, no, you need to buy the same amount of trousers as you bought last year. So I think listening to them and understanding how product is also evolving is really important.

Making sure that all teams are involved in all the processes, because I've definitely found that, you know, you in the past, merch weren't allowed into any kind of design inspiration meetings, but actually you need to be involved at the beginning so you're aware of what's going on, so you can understand and support the teams.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, I think it just was—

sorry, I was gonna say, as much as it's important that we support one another, we also need to be able to challenge one another in a healthy way. I need to be challenged by the design team if they've got new trends coming up and I haven't put it into planning, or if there's something going on in the TikTok world. I don't have TikTok, so I need someone to inform me and challenge me on the numbers that I originally submitted that we should be working towards, and vice versa. You know, if we all of a sudden start going down a very strange path with the direction, or the quality starts to fall apart, you know, that's not going to help either. Or we have certain retail prices that we want to hit, so therefore we have to maintain a margin. You know, it works both ways, but it should be a fun tug of war, you know, not a full-on battle.

It's also being able to step back, like all of us need to be able to step back because it's so easy to be stuck in the weeds of it all, us with our numbers, buying, like everyone, to actually step back and go, hang on a minute, does this make sense for everyone? Does this work? And Frances, you definitely touched on something about history. We as planners have always been, you've got to hit last year, you've got to match that, and we're always looking at last year. And I think you said it as well, Kiran, is how do we turn it on its head and say, actually, okay, that was last year, but that didn't do exactly what we needed to do, so we're willing to change. And I remember one of my team members once saying to me, I can't even remember what the product was that we hadn't done the previous year. And I said, okay, we need to now do this this year. And they were like, no, but last year you said that you didn't want to do it like that. I went, yeah, and that didn't work best, so now we need to change it. And it's always being able to you know, willing to challenge yourself and say, I was wrong, or it didn't work out as it was planned. You know, it's not about blame, but how can we move and develop and carry on from that? I think that's really, really important. The next point actually is quite interesting about working with suppliers in this volatile time, because we've spoken a lot about the teams we've got inside our business, but we haven't spoken about the teams outside, because obviously the suppliers are under as much pressure as we are. you know, as much pressure as the brands are, and how can we build flexibility and supplier relationships without simply pushing more risk and pressure onto them. I mean, I think gone are the days when, you know, we will suddenly— brands that no longer exist, they're a cadet of the days, you know, when they would suddenly just put on more surcharges, increase their supplier terms. Actually, we've got to work collectively with them. And one of the ways that we've done it in the past when I was working at Bellstaff was actually looking at what worked for each factory on their downtime, what could help them work it that way and where they wouldn't have risk. Somewhere involved buying product upfront, not product upfront, but fabric upfront. But then we could be clever and, you know, everything would be in greige and you could do it in another color. Or sometimes we would do, you know, if something was in like a lighter color, we would over-dye it with the black if it wasn't working. And getting them to balance it alongside what is the best way for them to work. And it doesn't work for every supplier. Some suppliers, I mean, Carolina, you touched on the 3, 4-month Italian fabric issue, which we had in Belfast. So literally, like, yeah, never mind your 6-month make window, you're adding on another 4 months into that. And that was, it can be quite troublesome. But the clever way to work with that with different suppliers is actually, can they offload it to someone else? If they can't because it's something that's unique to us, then can we do something else with that fabric? And actually listening to them and making sure they're being very flexible and being open with them about where you think you might have an area of risk. Does anyone else have— what other clever ways have people worked with suppliers to help them be more flexible and more aligned with what we need? Because we're interdependent.

I definitely like now interject myself way more into production because factory is one thing, but I also have a mill. So sometimes, like I just found out about Resort, which is meant to drop in November. We have some delays. So I'm trying to see if we can produce less of— I don't want a sweater being late. It's such a tricky timing and such a tricky category. So I'd rather have a liability left in the yarn than a full ready product. And we could maybe reuse the yarn. So it's one of those things that's literally happened yesterday. So I tried to inter— I definitely, this is the closest I've ever worked with production. Like there's just so many terms that I didn't even understand. And now I'm just sitting there checking why is the same shape of denim using more yards than a year before? It's because we're using different fabric. It has different shrinkage. This is like all last 3 years in Tibi for me. And outside of that, because we use a lot of fabrics that are made for us, we don't use many stock fabrics. If we have a bestseller and I really want to chase it, we are looking for different qualities. Again, so many qualities of nylon, never knew that. Nylon was nylon to me before. So we're trying to be creative, especially on the fabric side, because that's such a big deal for us. Specifically.

Have any of the others of you had any sort of dealings with suppliers and that, that they've pushed back? And what ways have we worked with them?

I've definitely had some moments where we've got suppliers pushing back, and I think you have to remind yourselves and them that you are a partnership. You have to work together. So what are the challenges from both sides, and how do both parties then come together to then figure that out? If it's a financial challenge, what can we do? If there is a reality of, I don't know, something happened or people are out, etc. It's kind of like when you work with warehouses as well. You've got to remember that these people are helping you and supporting the business, but likewise, you're doing the same for them. So not total transparency, I wouldn't necessarily say, but there has to be some transparency and just, you know, what, what can we do to help one another out.

Yeah, totally agree. Um, has anyone else got any points on this section before I move on to the next one? Um, so the next part, again, really quite interesting and a very hot topic, uh, which has been a hot topic for a couple of years now, but especially getting now. So data, AI, and predictive forecasting. To try and help us with all this. So AI and predictive analytics are reshaping forecasting, but are they delivering true accuracy or just faster guesses? And how are you using data and AI to scenario plan and make smarter inventory bets? Frances, I think you've had some dealings with this, haven't you?

Yeah, so I think to answer your first question, Yes, AI is providing more accuracy and faster results. I don't think anyone's really questioning that. I think probably getting used to using new tools and getting used to a new way of thinking sometimes takes a bit more convincing, but I think ultimately everybody is seeing success with AI in the markets at the moment. I think in terms of how we're using data and AI to kind of scenario plan and make smarter inventory bets. At Fabletics, we have a forecasting tool which has been amazing at increasing our size forecasting on core. It also helps with warehouse forecasting and helps with retail store kind of allocation forecasting as well, which I don't know if any of you have retail stores, but it is the biggest pain point, trying to get your stock as accurate as possible for retail stores and the size curves on an individual store level. So these are the ways that it's kind of supported us. The way that it does support us is it takes all the kind of historical sales information, looks at missed opportunities and stockouts, and then also builds in external knowledge. And I think that this is one of the things sometimes with AI is that we're constantly thinking about— we're all fairly good at maths, we're all merchandise planners. And I think sometimes we think, well, the maths is the maths. It might take us a while to get there, but we'll all get to the same result. But actually now AI can pull in so many more external factors, which is then giving us kind of faster, more accurate results. So it can pull in trends in the weather from the year before, it can pull in reactions to TikTok, it can pull in reactions on a retail level. Was there a mall promotion or a mall opening that it can feed into that data so it can kind of rebalance your sales forecast? And then obviously what we can do as a result is rebalance our demand forecast as well for the future seasons. And we've seen real success with this at the moment. So the kind of market prediction is that old school ways of planning are about 30 to 40% inaccurate, and the gap is now closing to 10 to 15%. So again, makes it clear that AI is not perfect. Still learning. Um, but obviously the more that we start using these tools, the more we feed into these tools, the more accurate they're going to become. And I think it's also about where do you leverage your wins? So for us, we're really focusing on core at the moment and really focusing on improving our core assortment and availability. High fashion, we're not using AI for yet. We're using AI in terms of, um, trend forecasting and getting things like using things like WGSN Edited for kind of trend insights. But we're not using it to plan actual numbers because for us the tooling just isn't there quite yet. I'm sure it will be in the future. So it's also using AI where you really believe you can make the quickest wins yourself as a business and then relying on that or blending with that kind of old school planning as well to kind of get the most accurate outcome possible. Yeah, I agree.

I'm Cor, and I found that one thing that AI has nailed yet, or us as humans either, is the newness component. Because we can look at last year and look at the amount of trousers and copy that, but whether it was a new body last year or repeat body, this is the still part that I haven't seen any AI tools where you can tag it and it kind of applies it into the algorithm. And also from us, from our teams, sometimes we bet on it and it's a flop. Sometimes we bet on it and it's not even enough. So is that this is the component, and I especially see it with, with luxury, where, um, customer is not necessarily looking for another black wool trouser. They want something that is going to push their wardrobe. So this is the part that AI still doesn't get exactly. And we're also guessing a little bit, but for core, and I found it also for sizing, it's amazing. Instead of rerunning those size curves every collection that was always a pain. And it was always too much of a macro level. Like a pant is not necessarily just a pant. There's so many design elements, I feel like, because I'm using a tool that does it and it's a visual, so I can find historical product that looks like this and it comes in the same size convention. That's where I found really, really big wins. And also the Ozempic effect is real. It is, and it got picked up by our side scores naturally without me even thinking about that. But then when I was asked whether we take it into consideration, when I pulled, like, I think it was like about 6 months ago when I pulled data for previous 6 months versus like 2 years ago, we've done it, but we've just done it naturally. We've actually changed our side scores naturally without even thinking about it because we have AI for that.

I didn't even think about the Ozempic effect on sizing.

It is very much real. For us, it's not like, it's not all of a sudden that our customers is double zero, but my friends from industry that are working for Carings of the world, they see a much bigger shift than I do, but we all see shift.

Sure. In certain areas of the world, I would imagine that is actually definitely having an impact. But I agree with you guys that you have to have that balance, right? Like, AI is an awesome tool that is probably, you know, terrifies people who don't use it properly. But it's definitely just delivering faster information for us. And I think if you can just harness that for a second and not stop doing all the other things that you're doing, that alone can help build better predictive forecasting because you have more time. But, you know, I still think that the business will always be a balance of fact and forecast, and that forecast always definitely has to happen from like lots of different places, not just a single AI tool or even 3 of them that are looking at your history. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take, right?

Exactly. Exactly. And it's right, we need to use— AI should free us up to be able to actually analyze and look at the data better, which is sometimes we don't have time to do that because we're so busy getting the data and pulling it together. Emma, I'm guessing you don't have any issues with the Ozempic effect on socks?

It hasn't impacted our sock sizing, no. I can't comment.

While we're on AI, so we need to talk about the tech integration beyond AI. So beyond AI forecasting, how are the tools that we've already got like PLM, 3D, or digital twins improving planning accuracy and speed? And what— where are the current limitations? And Frances, back to you on this one because the sort of AI expert of the team, which is probably—

I wouldn't say I'm an expert. And also when I got given this question, um, in the pre-read, I was like, what is a digital twin? So I thought maybe I'd just start by breaking those down because I'm sure probably a lot of the audience feels the same. Um, and I think we're talking a lot about AI right now, and I think we're still, um, integrating that into our tech. And I think these are kind of the next level, and it's been so interesting to kind of read more about these. Um, so you started by mentioning, mentioning PLM. I think most people are probably a bit more familiar with this— product lifecycle management. Um, and this is kind of a central hub for all product data, so really goes from kind of the initial fabrics and the mills and all the data and information around that to kind of the performance of the product at the end and storing all that data in one place. So that again, going back to the question on team collaboration, everyone has access to the same amount of data. You're not waiting for people to pull reports and share information with you. I can go into that and see where that product's coming from. The buying team can go in and see what the product performance was. And I feel like that is a central location where all information is stored. Then 3D design, so this is a way that products can be created digitally. You can basically test out things like stretch of fabric, how a fabric sits, the drape of the fabric on kind of a 3D model and see how that product will look in the real world, which for me is fantastic. It cuts down a lot of sample times. It also cuts down the amount of samples that you need, um, and also provides a little bit more clarity with the factory. On the digital model, it's much easier to kind of mark up. I remember, and still we do it, we're guilty of it at Fabletics, you send things back with a safety pin in saying cut to here, whereas you can do this digitally on the model now. So it avoids a lot of error as well, um, and disruption in product timelines. And then digital twins, this was the new one for me. Um, so I think probably we all saw last year that H&M is now starting to use digital models for their products. So they're using real-life models and then they have a digital twin of that person where they're able to do photo shoots, they're able to kind of, um, go even do like marketing, um, campaigns with these digital models, um, which obviously speeds up time to market but also reduces in terms of in terms of travel, that kind of thing. But you can also do digital twins elsewhere in the production line. So factories are able to do digital twins of their factory. They can do a digital twin of the production line so that you can kind of manage the production line and see, okay, if I need to close off a certain area, how would that look in the production? How would this affect the production? You can also do it with retail stores. So if you wanted maybe to test out the flow of a new store or the layout of a new store, you can actually build a digital store and see how the customer experience would be before you commit time, before you commit money into building these. So I think, yeah, they're all improving things like planning accuracy and speed, but I think the limitations are, one, it's kind of next level in our mindset. Of how we're implementing AI. So I think we're all starting to get our head around AI and we're all using it in our daily work. And I think it's that next level and trying to shift the mindset there is always struggle number one. But I think struggle number two as well, I think kind of syncing these real-time situations, training teams, also using these cross-functionally as well. For example, if you have a 3D product, you need your factory to be on board with using the 3D product as much as you're using the 3D product in-house. So I think for me, it's kind of the mindset shift, but then also getting kind of all the stakeholders involved and also willing to kind of use this new tooling as well.

Yeah, definitely making sure you've got everyone involved in that piece. Has anyone else had any experience with integrating AI into other tools that we've already got? Are we still on the infancy stage with these things?

Baby steps.

Yeah, definitely just on the data part, not digital twizz.

I love that.

I want to go and suggest, like, how do we get digital firts? What are the socks gonna look like?

Exactly. We chatted earlier on a little bit about how we look at the past and how we need to look at the the future. I mean, that's all about taking managed risks. So in this sort of unpredictable world that we've been talking about, perfect plans, as we know, don't exist. And I don't think that they ever really have. You know, like you said, some things hit, some things miss. What does smart managed risk-taking look like in planning? And how do we balance gut instinct with decision-based, with data-driven decision-making? One thing I would say definitely is moving away, sort of move from risk avoidance to risk intelligence. So being a little bit clever, not seeing it as a negative and seeing it as a positive. Again, the old-fashioned way of always looking historically back and actually it's like, how can we be a bit cleverer with that and a bit smarter? And it's just like we said, you know, we used to traditionally try to eliminate risk, but now smart planning, we now need to focus on how to understand it and manage it. And the biggest risk in today's market is often playing it too safe and missing opportunities. You know, like you said, Ciara, you know, you miss 100% of the opportunities that you don't take. And being able to take managed risks like that is really important. And obviously, I think data is amazing, but we can also need to balance our gut instinct. You know, us and all the audience probably have, you know, years of experience behind them and have a gut of actually, this isn't going to make sense. Any more. You know, that whole thing of, you know, you've got a bestseller and people keep pumping money behind it. Actually, you've got to think, I've got that happening, what is going to be the next bestseller? So what risk can you take now that something might do? Things switch off, things fall off the cliff. You know, we thought chinos were the great big new thing. And then, you know, I remember when I was working at TED and it was chinos, chinos, chinos, and eventually the sales started to, you know, plateau and then fall well then luckily we had something else in the back burner and that's how you've got to try and manage it and not be scared. Has anyone else sort of had any experience with that? I'm guessing you've all got experience with managing, sort of having more managed risks. Has anyone else got anything to speak back on this part?

I mean, I'll just add, I think this is also where that cross-collaboration piece is super important. I can influence a decision and I can execute one, but I think it's also critical that I check in with my counterparts, You know, if we want to change direction of what the range is looking like, is the sales team aligned with that? You know, are they also hearing it from their markets that this is the right decision to take? If we want to, if we're planning to pivot, it means that the brand is going to pivot, right? So we have to have everybody else on board. So for me, whenever I have a sense or a feeling based on my experience, experience and what the data is saying, I always have some form of counterpart depending on what part of the business I'm working on that I just want to send a check like, hey, I think we might need to turn left when we've been driving right this whole time and get that alignment because then the total execution, that's how it will happen when you have everybody else on board.

I agree with that. I am in that zone right now because we have just launched new categories for the Ralph Lauren brand and sleepwear and intimates, and it's all a risk. I mean, the whole thing is a risk. So the question is, you know, what are like the perfect plan doesn't exist. That's like an understatement. I mean, we are like driving the car while we're flying the plane. And like learning at the same time. So I cannot stress more that it is not a single, you know, function or person that is doing that. It has to be all in the same room. So, Frances, we have to be all together, sitting together, talking through that. And we also have to expect mistakes. I mean, I think there's only one constant, and that's change. And the only thing that I'm confident about when I look at merch plans and forecasts for the next year to 3 years is that we're going to have to be able to pivot. And, you know, 80% of our business is done on 20% of the SKUs. That's like real anywhere you go in any category. So I think, I think KPIs that people are looking at, the, the real focus is overall growth, not the mistakes that you made and the wins that you had, but overall, how are you pushing forward and challenging people on like what they did differently to like get smarter? And it feels vague, but it's like we're, you know, even with AI, we're just simply not going to have all the answers for any category.

As long as you have balance, though, where like, you know, the areas where you're managing risk, versus areas that you're taking opportunity and the imbalance, that even that opportunity tanks, yeah, you have your core range that this is pure data and it's healthy and it has profit and it's stable. And I feel like that's— I always, because I'm, although I'm planning, I'm also buying for Tibi, and it's a very design-driven company, and I'll never pull the their creative ideas down. They will never listen to me anyway. But even if I tried, I don't— if, you know, we had one collection with a snail motif, they love the snail that season. It was very out there and it's fine. I'm just going to buy very little. We're going to get that surcharge. It's fine. But I know that the bestseller is going to be bought with good depth. And even if that snail is even slower than in nature, it's fine. So I think as long as— I mean, but also vague balance. It's like we hear it all the time about our lives as well. But I think as long as you don't go 100% into risk and you balance it out, I mean, you'll find it.

I think sometimes too much consistency is also risk. Like I always used to say that if you buy, if you were a merchandise planner, your ideal shop would be a black skinny jean, a blue skinny jean, a white t-shirt and a black t-shirt, and you'd be a millionaire. Well, now no one's wearing skinny jeans. So actually kind of doubling down too much on what you know is also risk in this market these days. And it's also about learning to kind of have that flexibility already built into your planning.

A lot of retailers, especially e-commerce retailers that have a lot, a lot of brands and a lot of, a lot of SKUs. Um, they, they don't even want the repeat styles, even if they bestsellers, because all they rely on is newness. All they were like that little section when you go and see what's new, that's what customers are buying. So that's also leaning like too far in one, to one side, but it's a valid point for sure. So yeah, you can't just be running your core little shop.

But I think it's all, it's interesting. Like when you bring up the skinny jean thing, if you pay attention to trends, it is, it, nothing changes overnight. Everything is like a very long road with consumer. So if you're seeing tons of red on the runway as an example, red is going to like be in the market for the next 12 to 18 months. And if you don't have red in the mix at some point between now and then, it's sort of like you're, you're missing a function to like pay attention to that too. So, you know, I do think that like we have to be, yes, risk adverse, but also pay ear to the ground and not be so afraid to like, you know, move forward like the rest. Like who on here said they didn't have TikTok? You have to get on TikTok. Listen, I hear you. It's a time sucker. It's like makes you dumber if you like don't have your own guardrails. But the reality is people are there and there's a ton of trend you can learn from that. So not to say that the merch planning function is necessarily, you know, the team to be able to do that, but you should be leaning into the rest of your partners who do focus on that to make sure you're aware. And that you can start to make small changes so that you're not— all your eggs aren't in the wrong basket at the end.

Yeah, exactly that. I think that we are almost ready for our Q&A session now. I think we might have a brief moment to talk about one of the final points, which was the role of scale. And I think you touched on this, Carolina. So do these planning challenges and solutions differ depending on the company size? You know, are the same core issues universal across big global brands and like smaller, more niche players?

I mean, the challenges are definitely very, very different. I feel like when I was working for, especially in Australia, bigger brands, I worked for the biggest e-commerce shopping site and then the biggest department store there. I think the challenges were sometimes being siloed. I think especially like, especially with marketing, that was the hardest with the big teams to get on the same page, to actually even know those people. Cause those offices were so big that like someone had to tell me where to go to speak to someone who I was just being introduced to. So, so I felt like that was my challenge because you do have to reach out, um, I feel like if you don't know someone personally, that email is not really like very effective. Um, just sending an email and finding out like through that. So I feel like that was, and I was also probably, I was also earlier in my career, so maybe I was a bit shy about it too. Um, versus now I do know every single person here. We work very closely. Um, but The challenge here is sometimes because I'm in the middle of everything, but I do take a lot of decisions kind of myself buying and planning. I have to make sure that I reach out and have counterparts. So I don't lean too much into what I'm thinking, because I feel like that's especially not having that buying counterpart. Like I pull my e-com director and I pull the head of style, head head of styling because I need that input because I don't want to fall too much into the planner side of my brain where I naturally go. So I think, yeah, very, very, very different challenges.

Yeah, totally agree. We've got a couple of really interesting questions in from the audience. The first one is back onto the topic of AI and tech. And the question is, what new skills do planning teams need in order to succeed as we digitize? Is it more technical, more analytical, or more collaborative? I mean, personally, I think it's all three. I think all three are equally important. I think we kind of touched on that in the whole part of collaboration is important. You know, being able to be more analytical is important, but being technical with these new tools and systems. Does anyone else have any other points on that? Any viewpoints on that?

I think technical is a bit tough sometimes in fashion. A lot of people are very shy about the technical part. So I think finding the tools that are very customer-friendly, like very easy to use, pictures, we love, like people love pictures, get them pictures.

What about you, Frances, and your team in your business? Because obviously, you know, you're using AI a little bit more than most of us have. Certain teams or certain people being a little bit more, nervous and scared of the technology or being more technical, or have they been all embracing?

Yeah, I mean, there's definitely a level of technical skill that you need now because you need to know what information is feeding into these tools and how they're generating their outputs. So there is kind of a technical level that we're kind of having to get our heads around. But I think the collaboration with kind of the IT teams that are implementing, the tech teams that are implementing these tools, that kind of collaboration and communication needs to be there. I'd say for me, and this is the world we're in right now, you need to be a little bit more insightful. You need to be able to question things. We're on ChatGPT. We don't just take the first answer it gives us. We ask, what are your sources for this? We ask, like, where did you get this information? And I think it's about asking those questions that you would ask in your personal life, also kind of in a work environment, not just taking a package as kind of done and dusted. Having done this kind of recent AI integration, That's what we've learned. Things won't go right in the first iteration, but if we all just sit there and assume that the tool is perfect, we're going to get in big trouble down the line. So it's all about asking those questions and trying to increase your knowledge there as well.

Yeah, totally agree. I've had that— there's two more questions come up, but one of them was really interesting, back talking to— talking about TikTok. So from a planning perspective, do we have any advice as to where we should be looking on TikTok for intel? And do we have any go-to TikTokers that we follow? Kira, I'll go as our lead.

I mean, I mean, yes and no. So I will tell you, I have a team that like drives through the TikTok analysis. But for the most part, you know, TikTok Shop has a ton of fantastic information in terms of reviews and You know, how many users are attached to like certain goods and services. I think it is always shocking to me when I like randomly search for something and I, and the, you know, tens of thousands of people who are all looking at the same thing and you're like, oh my gosh, like there's, um, in terms of influencers at large, I mean, you're an influencer if you have over 30,000 followers. So there's a lot of them now.

Yeah.

And there is, I mean, I have a whole dedicated budget just to influencers because they make such a humongous impact on, and it's not just for TikTok. I mean, some of them are great at TikTok, some of them aren't. I have one in particular that I follow because she started out as our fit model and became very, um, famous. Her name is Greta. Um, but I think, you know, I'm happy to share, Sandeep, with you and with the PI Planning team what, what TikTok influencers I follow— our team follows— so you guys can take a look. But I think it's more of just about really handling the social media marketing element of it and like really getting in deep with it, because it's— there's no longer— I spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on photo shoots and images to like put online and banners and none of it matters. The only thing that really matters is when you're on social media, where are people hitting you? Um, and so Facebook Marketplace also still has like, you know, a strong following. TikTok Shop for sure. Um, even Instagram, it's incredible. And I also have two young daughters and they're old enough to have some level of acknowledgement on social media. It is it blows me away, like what they know about from a brand perspective, you know, especially as it relates to the beauty space, footwear. I mean, it's an incredible tool that we should be using more of.

I think also there's a lot of noise and use external tools. You don't have to use TikTok to know what the TikTok trends are because sometimes I think there's so many trends out there. How do you navigate those trends? Find a tool that suits you, find an external company that suits you. That will also summarize them and summarize the things that are most relevant for your market. We're used to using things like WGSN for like trend analysis. So why not use another company for TikTok analysis?

And see who actually, because people can be posting your product, but doesn't mean generates sales. It can generate like brand awareness, which is also valuable. But through, we use Shopmite to see like who actually generates sales. And that's like really, really a big one.

I've got one final question before we end up. I think this is really important. So as a— one of the questions: as a student about to graduate with a degree in Fashion Merchandising, what advice would you give someone who is trying to break into the industry and make those first important career steps?

I would advise to— take each step, enjoy it first of all, but walk, don't run. I think merch planning is the more experience you have and the wider the background you have, ultimately the better you can be, right? And I think this is a career which you can be super smart, super savvy, on the ball, naturally pick things up, but really listen to what's happening and pay attention, be aware, but just enjoy those steps. It's not a short-term sprint. Like, a career in merch planning is a marathon, and it's worth it. It really, really is.

I think there's a lot to be said about the— there are some people are much more like, I've done this, I've been an allocator for a year, okay, now I'm going to be an AM for a year. And it's not necessarily that. I think that, you know, we spent a large chunk of our junior careers trying to fight up to the next level and sometimes getting frustrated when we didn't get pushed to the level that we wanted to be at. Actually, I found that I've learned a lot more from that because then you can carry that through to the rest of your career. I think that's really, really key.

If I could just add to that quickly as well, AI. Learn how to use Copilot, learn how to use ChatGPT for Excel. Ask ChatGPT for a career in merchandise planning that will span the next 30 years, what do you need to know? Don't forget that employers are now asking for this as well.

Yeah, definitely very interesting. And well, thank you very much. Uh, does anyone have any quick closing points, or, um, I just like to thank you all for all your time. I think it's been a really interesting exciting chat.

Thanks, Sandeep. I, I loved hearing all of y'all's points of view, so it was great. Thanks for the chance to be a part of it.

Brilliant. Thank you very much. Goodbye, everyone.

Thank you. Bye.

Hi guys, uh, thank you so, so much for that. We've done a lot of these, uh, spotlights. That is definitely one of the best I think we've ever had. The, um, energy that you all brought, brought to that was amazing, and it felt like a really, really genuinely good chat. So thank you so, so much, and also to the audience as well for sending in the questions for our panelists. We do hope that today sparked some fresh ideas and inspiration and maybe even challenged you to think about planning in a different way. As we mentioned at the beginning, we will be continuing these conversations, but going much deeper at our upcoming event in London called Merchandise Planning Europe, which will be taking place on the 21st and 22nd of October. And over 2 days, we'll be bringing together planning leaders, data experts, and technology partners to explore how to build planning processes that are flexible, future-facing, and fit for today's volatility. And if you are lucky enough to come, Sandeep, Emma, and Francis will also be there, so you'll be able to get to meet them in person. The last thing I want to say on the event is that the last chance to save on tickets ends next Friday, the 3rd of October, so book before then to get a saving of £250. And once again, we will be making this available on demand On Seamless and on our YouTube channel very, very soon. So thank you all so, so much again. Enjoy the rest of your day and see you next time.