Achieving peak performance requires a merchandise management solution that fosters strategic thinking and flawless execution. As the leading host transaction solution for the IBM iSeries environment, JDA Merchandise Management System / MMS offers a short implementation timeframe to quickly enable retailers to drive sales, margins and cash flow by getting the right products to the right place at the right time.

Business Challenges
JDA Merchandise Management System / MMS leverages advanced pricing methods, integrated financial and warehousing capabilities and customer order management functionality to increase your revenues. The merchandising solution enables you to proactively implement pricing based on rules such as margin, competitive prices, vendor incentives, and chain/zone/store overrides. It then automatically generates suggested changes, so you can evaluate the financial effects of planned price events prior to implementing.

Bottom Line Benefits

• Increased revenues with advanced pricing and promotions
• Improved margins with better understanding of true product costs
• Optimized inventory investment across channels
• Ability to deliver a seamless shopping experience

Why JDA
With JDA Merchandise Management System / MMS, your users can now access a purchase order (PO) or expected receipts dashboard to view business processes such as PO release, PO cancel and more — all through one view for improved productivity.

Application
The application suite includes the following:

• Inventory Control and Procurement
• Buyer's Workbench
• Vendor Management
• Merchandise Receiving, Allocation and Replenishment
• Distribution Center Management
• Price Management
• Promotional Management
• Financial Control

Inventory Control and Procurement
This includes purchasing and inventory and the module is used to create purchase orders, perform basic allocation and (store) physical inventory. JDA Merchandise Management System / MMS makes extensive use of inventory transactions and each and every activity can be closely monitored or audited. Also, JDA Merchandise Management System / MMS support physical inventory counts on a store basis with the warehouse having its own inventory function for cycle counts.

Purchase Orders can be single or multiple locations, pre-distributed (pre-allocated) or post-distributed (scheduled allocation from back stock after put-away).

Stock balances are fed to, and can be monitored from within JDA Merchandise Performance Analysis / IDEAS. The Action Support and certain transactions such as stock balancing, purchase order creation, promotional pricing and many more can be created and sent back to JDA Merchandise Management System / MMS. Sales and inventory analysis is also highly integrated with JDA Merchandise Performance Analysis / IDEAS.

Buyer's Workbench
The Buyer's Workbench is a series of functions that address purchasing and receiving. It includes color and size grids, allocations, pre-packs, PO reservations, release and maintenance of items, styles, and SKUs.

Store and distribution center/warehouse transfers support the movement of merchandise between locations. JDA Merchandise Performance Analysis / IDEAS tracks sales and inventory by color, size and dimension to the UPC and SKU levels. These may be analyzed in aggregate or individually. The On Order category will display open purchase orders and transfer orders, as well as in transit inventory.

Vendor Management
Vendors are maintained within JDA Merchandise Management System / MMS as part of the Accounts Payable module. Also, the Purchasing module supports a sophisticated level of allowances, rebates, or cost allowances to assist in costing landed costs such as freight.

Receipts and basic vendor compliance are tracked and credits for shorts, damages and so on are tracked and automatically included in invoice matching. Invoice matching is also available at the invoice or even line item level.

Merchandise Receiving, Allocation and Replenishment
Receiving is used when the store POS is not used for this purpose or when automatic (assumed) receiving is implemented. Allocation is basic, and many retailers choose the JDA Enterprise Planning & Allocation / Arthur, which includes advanced allocations, if more than the most basic of functionality is required. JDA Enterprise Planning & Allocation / Arthur are other products and sold separately but can be integrated with JDA Merchandise Management System / MMS.

Automated Replenishment allows a vast number of choices beyond simple minimum/maximum. Item velocity and sales profiles can also be used. The JDA Advanced Replenishment Solutions / E3 is chosen if more functionality is required. JDA Advanced Replenishment Solutions / E3 is another suite of products and is sold separately but can be integrated with JDA Merchandise Management System / MMS.

Distribution Center Management
DC Management is the logistics module. It includes in-bound shipment scheduling (from ASN), receiving, put-away, picking and shipping. There is also a cycle count function to assist with inventory counts.

The module supports advanced functions such as cross-docking and has various types of picking and put-away, including carton or pallet manifesting, as well as holding or allocating merchandise without the need to move it to a holding zone. The warehouse fully supports RF on most functions.

Price Management
This module includes Cost Management, and they function somewhat identically. Events are created and released to update permanent prices at POS, and markdowns/markups are tracked throughout the system. Prices can be managed at the store or price zone level, chain-wide or any combination as overrides.

Promotional Management
This functions with Price Management and allows several different advanced pricing schemes to support deal pricing such as buy 1 get 1, quantity ends, multiple dates, quantity breaks, mix/match, color/size/dimension overrides, price multiples and many more. Promotions are events that have ending dates, and once an event has ended, the price at POS returns to its regular, permanent price.

Financial Control
General Ledger, Accounts Payable (with invoice matching) and Accounts Receivable functions are all available. There are numerous advantages to using this highly-integrated yet basic financial accounting application.

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