Fiba Retail Group Accelerates Its Demand Forecasting and Inventory Planning Capabilities for GAP and Marks & Spencer

GAP and Marks & Spencer success story at a glance

With a strong presence in Turkey, Russia and Ukraine, Fiba Retail is among the leading retail groups in Eastern Europe. Holding the franchise rights of GAP Marks & Spencer and Banana Republic, the retailer serves its customers through its wide retail network of 175 stores and e-commerce channels.

To continue its sustainable growth, Fiba Retail aimed to have superior omni-channel capabilities. To determine the optimal stock level for each sales channel, reduce overstocks, and ultimately create a better experience for their customers for two global brands, Fiba Retail needed modern, AI-powered demand forecasting and inventory planning solutions. 

Fiba Retail rolled out invent.ai's Demand Forecasting, Allocation Optimization, Replenishment Optimization, and Transfer Optimization Solutions for GAP and Marks & Spencer brands in Turkey. As a result, the leading retailer has reduced out-of-stocks and inventory, drove sales, and improved gross profit.

Key benefits:

• Increased availability
• Reduced lost sales
• Enhanced buying decisions
• Improved inventory planning

The challenge

Making optimized inventory decisions across the entire product life cycle

In the past, Fiba had to deal with unbalanced stock when the demand was too low, causing lost sales. Managing the demand at a size level was a burdensome task for Gap and Marks & Spencer planning teams. The retailer wanted to improve their inventory planning processes and have a flexible planning system to cover demand in peak periods.

Fiba needed a predictive inventory planning system to reduce the time and effort spent on reactive processes and manage their entire product life cycle efficiently -from the initial allocation to transfers between stores.

Choosing invent.ai

After evaluating multiple vendors, Fiba selected invent.ai to optimize its inventory planning processes for two major brands.

“invent.ai has tremendous retail-specific experience and know-how acquired over the years through their partnership with many prominent brands in fashion retail. Their software excellence combined with their teams' unparalleled experience leaves almost no room for their clients to worry about their inventory planning,” says Batur Can, Fiba Retail Group.

A partnership approach with continuous support

“For us, one of the most appealing parts of working with invent.ai is their gradual approach to inventory management. In addition, invent.ai's continuous support approach makes a huge difference in our business,” adds Batur Can. 

A team of top-notch data scientists and software engineers continuously deliver new tailor-fit capabilities to Fiba. They work with Gap and Marks & Spencer planning team to identify opportunities to improve system performance and enable Fiba to easily manage retails numerous ups and downs.

The Impact

Future-ready, AI-powered demand forecasting

Using invent.ai Demand Forecasting, Fiba was able to generate highly accurate forecasts for GAP and Marks & Spencer and position inventory smartly at the right amount at each sales channel.  As a result, the retailer was also able to reduce costs by eliminating risks and unnecessary markdowns by making more informed inventory decisions.

Advanced allocation and replenishment optimization

Fiba experienced a huge impact on stock availability in all their sales channels thanks to invent.ai's Allocation and Replenishment Optimization. In addition, the solutions enabled Fiba to reduce lost sales and upgrade its inventory decisions from a judgment-driven, KPI-measured process to a financial optimization-driven and measured process.

Size-based store to store transfers

invent.ai's Transfer Optimization which weighs all possible parameters into the calculation process, empowered Fiba to make predictive, size-based stock transfers between stores. By rebalancing inventory across locations, Fiba increased its inventory productivity and sales conversion while increasing sell-through.

The Future with invent.ai

In the future, Fiba plans to continue investing in new technologies focusing on meeting their customers’ needs. The leading retailer plans to continue its partnership with invent.ai's implement Markdown Optimization solution as the next step in their digital transformation journey.