Hard Rock International operates retail shops, restaurants, cafes, hotels, and casinos in 74 countries featuring the world’s largest music & rock-and-roll memorabilia collection. The company was seeking to grow and optimise retail operations in their Rock Shop stores. It needed to improve demand and sales forecast accuracy, streamline operations and better manage inventory. Hard Rock’s retail challenge was unique because most of the merchandise is branded with city names (Hard Rock Chicago, Hard Rock Paris), making inventory management a particular challenge.
Hard Rock was looking for a partner that could help them overcome these challenges and chose to deploy Retalon’s Retail Predictive Analytics & AI platform.
“With other companies offering forecast solutions, there was a lot of user knowledge needed. Here though, we felt like we could trust the forecasts with 99.9 percent certainty,” said Danny Leadbeater, Senior Director of Planning and Allocation at Hard Rock International.
Retalon introduced world-class AI and predictive analytics technology to Hard Rock’s retail business. The system now generates a highly accurate demand forecast down to an individual product at a specific store. Using solutions for merchandise and assortment planning, purchasing, and inventory replenishment allow Hard Rock to more effectively manage and optimize their business. The software also offers improved visibility, proactive recommendations, greater automation and consistent workflow.
After integrating the system into their enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, Hard Rock has witnessed a tremendous difference in their bottom line, particularly their in-stock percentage. Hard Rock has been able to increase and consistently maintain their in-stock percentage to 97 percent and they expect to get up to very close to 100 percent across all retail locations in over 74 countries.
“Our whole way of thinking has changed. Before, we would look at our business based on past history,” said Theresa Riha, Retail Buyer and Planner at Hard Rock International. “Now we’re able to be forward thinking. We’re a very seasonal business and we’re able to see what is going to happen with our business instead of just looking backwards.”
Retalon is the first retail platform to offer end-to-end solutions for forecasting, planning, inventory optimisation, price management, promotions and markdowns.
