For the third consecutive year, SAS is a Leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Merchandise Assortment Management Applications.

“With the retail sector becoming increasingly more competitive, there is a greater pressure on retailers to better understand customers,” said Andrew Fowkes, Head of Retail Centre of Excellence at SAS UK & Ireland. “Retailers must adopt a data-centric approach if they are to accurately monitor and measure customer needs which in turn will leader to healthier profits and expand overall sales. In doing so, customers’ experience online, in-store and on mobile will be vastly improved.”

With SAS^®, organisations can:

• Develop successful assortment plans that allow analysts to drill down to the store level to identify and manage exceptions
• Tune assortments to meet customer demand for style, colour or size
• Tailor assortments quickly using analytics and customer insights

When a complete picture of the customer emerges – who they are, what they buy, and how they buy it – a retailer can make smarter decisions to market and drive sales. Guided by predictive analytics, SAS helps retailers manage the process on and off the sales floor through assortment optimisation, merchandise financial planning and merchandise location planning. Learn more about SAS Integrated Merchandise Planning.

According to Gartner, “The market for retail assortment management applications (RAMAs) continues to grow, with strong demand from Tier 1 retailers in all segments of North America, Western Europe and Asia/Pacific. This is in response to the need to improve inventory productivity by ensuring that the assorted products are stocked in the most appropriate locations to serve customers… There are more than 250 global retailers operating in this market. RAMA products support activities and business processes that are critical to the fulfillment of customers’ needs.”