We read an excellent article about a concept called "Shelf Centered Collaboration" that Booz Allen outlined in their excellent magazine, "Strategy & Business". From the opening of "Partners at the Point of Sale":

With “shelf-centered collaboration,” manufacturers and retailers can finally turn customer information into profitable insight. Working with carefully selected value chain partners and using new kinds of analytics, they can shift focus from the “mean” to the “meaningful”: from aggregated sales figures to a granular understanding of consumer demand by item, by store, and by day.

The network would also operate “shelf-back,” responding immediately to information about consumer purchase patterns and demand with real-time changes in shelf-stocking decisions, displays, supply chain execution, and even product design. Although this general concept may sound familiar to those in the industry — for example, as “demand-driven supply networks” (DDSN) — current practices are often limited to the rapid replenishment of standard merchandise, without tailoring of the product mix or timing to consumer demand patterns. Nor do current practices incorporate the kind of robust analytics that can predict changes in consumer demand. SCC would help manufacturers, along with store and category managers, make far better use of POS data and analytics.

What's cool is that the "shelf back" concept that they are proposing is really Flowcasting. Is it us, or are a number of people starting to talk more about Flowcasting?

To read the entire article click here.