Confidential mandate
Retail Inventory Optimisation Director — Consulting
Planned Hiring / New
A national fashion retailer needs a five-month inventory optimisation design connecting assortment, allocation, replenishment and markdown decisions across stores, digital fulfilment and highly seasonal categories.
The mandate
The defined problem is excess terminal inventory alongside lost sales because assortment, initial allocation, replenishment and markdown use separate forecasts and incentives. Digital fulfilment further distorts store availability.
The deliverable is a season baseline, decision-calendar redesign, assortment and allocation rules, omnichannel availability logic, markdown triggers, pilot results and next-season rollout case.
Milestone one is due 31 October 2026 with demand and inventory baseline; milestone two on 15 December with target rules and pilot setup; milestone three on 28 February 2027 with one-category results, accepted rules and scale plan.
The Inventory Council accepts when stock and sales reconcile to finance, pilot comparability is approved before launch, full-price sell-through improves five points without lower availability and projected benefit passes finance sensitivity.
The retailer provides SKU-location sales, stock, transfers, prices, promotions, returns, digital orders, receipts and range plans. One category team and thirty stores protect weekly pilot decision time.
Why this is external work
Merchandise, supply, stores and digital teams each own a different inventory objective. A neutral retail-planning team can align decisions around one season and test outcomes. The capability is needed through rule transfer, not as outsourced buying.
What you will own
- Reconcile season demand, availability, transfers, markdown and terminal stock.
- Diagnose decision timing and forecast bias for milestone one.
- Design assortment, initial allocation and replenishment rules.
- Define digital fulfilment and store-protection logic.
- Set markdown triggers linked to cover, lifecycle and residual risk.
- Run one-category, thirty-store pilot with agreed comparison.
- Deliver milestone-three results and next-season scale plan.
Candidate qualifications
- 18–22 years in fashion merchandising, retail planning, inventory or analytics.
- Direct responsibility for national SKU-location inventory decisions.
- Evidence of improving full-price sell-through without masking availability loss.
- Experience integrating store and digital inventory logic.
- Strong seasonal pilot, markdown and finance-reconciliation capability.
- Ability to transfer rules into client planning routines.
Non-negotiables
- No planning-software resale or fee tied to projected savings.
- Pilot cohorts and exclusions agreed before launch.
- Kolkata presence during design and all acceptance reviews.
- Merchandising retains assortment and pricing authority.
- 49 words maximum. Which fashion inventory pilot improved sell-through, and what availability guardrail proved the gain was real?
- 49 words maximum. How would you separate assortment, allocation and replenishment causes in milestone one?
- 49 words maximum. Which SKU-location and digital fields must be available before baseline lock?
This mandate is confidential. The client is named only under a mutual NDA, and your own record is never listed, sold or shown to a company under your name until you release it for this specific mandate.