SAS analytics software on Microsoft Azure helps retailers navigate shifting market conditions, new channels and elevated consumer expectations to deliver optimal shopping experiences. Customer Centric Assortments is a full set of merchandise financial planning, assortment management, and demand clustering capabilities for tailoring compelling localized assortments.  

SAS powers the planning process with advanced analytics creating visibility to risks and opportunities in the business so that merchants and planners can react and collaborate in real-time. And with SAS® Integrated Planning, your planning data can be leveraged to drive informed staffing and inventory management decisions to help you service consumers and flow product with much more precision. Quickly analyze customer demand and collaborate across the teams to develop strategic financial plans, create and manage tailored assortments with unlimited dimensions, and dynamically adjust in-season forecasts to changing demand and inventory conditions.  

Low-touch planning processes help manage planning by exception, which in turn reduces errors and human bias. A powerful workflow capability paired with built-in SAS Analytics makes possible personalized assortment plans and enables exceptional curated ranges – by channel, trade area, store cluster, and department. By collaboratively developing and executing financial and merchandise plans, whether top-down, bottom-up or middle-out, retailers can consistently operationalize plans to meet objectives for profitability, growth, and market share. The system provides a cloud-native user experience allowing planners to visually analyze data to spot patterns and insight to sales, shipments, pricing, promotions, etc. What-if scenario analysis for assortment size, depth, spatial constraints, operational costs and much more, help retailers manage plans and open-to-buy. 

Easily run analytic workloads in the cloud to meet business goals faster and enable trusted decisions. SAS is a recognized leader in Machine-Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Predictive Analytics. Powered by SAS® Intelligent Planning, the solution harnesses these capabilities to streamline and automate complex planning tasks that result in assortments that deliver superior customer experiences. 

SAS analytics solutions transform data into intelligence, inspiring over 1,400 Retail & Consumer Goods companies around the world to make bold new discoveries that drive progress.