ERS is a service-oriented business with the goal of helping retailers, suppliers and brands turn their inventory faster, forecast more accurately and provide deeper visibility to sales. The team is passionate about collecting, integrating and interpreting data to improve the client’s merchandise decision-making ability. The team will not only help the clients get data. Rather the team enables the clients to interpret and take action on that data. Additionally, if the clients’ company is already getting data and using spreadsheets to run forecasts and manage the clients’ business, the team offers a better way.

ERS clients are passionate about collecting, integrating and interpreting POS and inventory data to improve their merchandise decision-making ability. Most companies cannot accomplish that on their own. They need expertise, technology and the engagement of knowledgeable experts to make it happen. The software business benefits greatly from the consulting business and vice versa. Consulting clients get the benefit of the results of sophisticated software tools without having to use it. The software clients get 24/7 access to those tools. And both get the benefit of being able to talk to a consultant. The team complements or acts as the clients’ planning team. The team knows what questions to ask and live and breathe retail planning every day. Complete tool kit for planners, buyers and suppliers. The service includes POS analytics, reporting, dashboards, forecasting and more. The solutions work for retailers, suppliers, licensors, distributors and brands. Data can be integrated between them for the ultimate in data and information sharing.

Top services provides by the firm

POS reporting: Developing a set of action-oriented POS reporting enables the clients to make smarter merchandising and inventory decisions. The team can help the clients define a set of reporting to accomplish the clients’ goals. If the clients are spending too much time running and formatting reports every week, the clients are doing it wrong. The team can help the clients manage and integrate the clients’ retail data in any format- web portals, EDI 852, Microsoft Excel Spreadsheets, text files, etc. The team can even blend fields from one source to another- like average unit retail from web portal and sales units from EDI 852. Once data is managed, the team offers a variety of POS reporting delivery models based on the clients’ specific needs. The team offers a wide range of do-it-yourself reporting tools or custom designed reports and dashboards based on the clients’ needs and delivered directly to the clients and the clients’ team.

Inventory planning: Inventory is the clients’ capital investment. To get the highest rate of return the clients need to optimize the use of it. Accordingly, the systems and expertise enable the clients to optimize productivity in innovative ways. The team offer a wide range of inventory planning solutions including do-it-yourself reporting tools, custom designed reports and dashboards based on the clients’ needs and delivered directly to the clients and the clients’ team. This demand planning tool does more than just help determine sales potential and inventory requirements- it helps organize and rationalize the clients’ sku’s. By implementing the planning process a fast growing digitally native CPG distributor improved in-stocks by over 20%. Automation of many of their buying activities now saves an average of 3 days of work each week.

Forecasting: This retail forecast estimates future sales and inventory requirements by SKU, Style, Category, etc. Additionally, Rolling Forecast tells the clients when to buy- and how much. Designed for both retail and wholesale inventory planners, it uses a variety of parameters including seasonality curves, lead times, promotions and more to better manage production planning and improve inventory productivity.  Deepen visibility to sales and predict the future better. Firstly, the system uses a variety of parameters including weeks of supply models, lead time, seasonality, promotional adjustments and different calculation models. Secondly, it compares external forecasts to a system generated forecast. Thirdly it applies smart business rules to provide the most accurate forecast. Finally it saves multiple versions for future reference.

Additionally, it provides an interactive experience- change work in progress; estimated sales right on the screen and see how it affects the forecast. Based on methodology used by most retailers it is simple yet effective.  All values generated by the retail forecast can be integrated with Microsoft PowerBI or Retail Synthesis to create completely customized views, reports and dashboards by user.

Custom Dashboards and Software: The team has been creating reports for all different types of businesses for over 18 years. Companies come to the team to automate, integrate different data points or to take the stress out of formatting and combining different reports every week. The team provides the information they need to make better decisions. From sending reports in MS Excel to creating live custom web pages, the team caters to what works best for the clients’ organization. It’s probably the biggest pain point- how to get fields from different data sources on one report. The team will find a way to do it. The team handles everything from simple selling reports to advanced dashboards with integrated data sets. The consultants do more than deliver a report- they talk the clients through what the data is trying to tell the clients.

Jim Lewis, Chief Executive Officer 

“We solve tough problems that hold a company back from reaching its full potential.”