Talk Retail to Me

This week, Parker Avery Principal Marty Anderson along with Senior Managers Heidi Csencsits and Dmitry Magas discuss retail pricing and promotions.  The three industry experts expand on their recent core merchandising conversation and take a deep dive into another key retail capability area. Along with host Tricia Gustin , the team covers: What is involved in the effective management of pricing an...

In this episode, The Parker Avery Group continues our focus on core retail functions, and we cover merchandise financial planning (MFP). Senior Director of Marketing Tricia Gustin is joined by Senior Managers LouAnn Villasor and Russ Smith, both of whom have deep experience in merchandise financial planning business processes and system implementation across a wide variety of retailers . In this d...

This week, Parker Avery’s Chief Analytics Officer and Managing Partner, Sam Iosevich , and Senior Director of Marketing, Tricia Gustin , welcome Steve Gordon into the firm. Steve is an apparel, grocery, and CPG industry veteran with over three decades of experience as a retail industry insider, business development professional, and consultant.  He joins The Parker Avery Group as the firm's Chief...

In this episode, guest Michelle Bogan joins our discussion. Michelle's firm, Equity at Work , provides consulting to companies focused on developing DEI strategies to align business objectives, employee experiences, and company values. Equity at Work also supports company leaders in driving the appropriate changes.  This episode also features Kathi Toll and Carrie Habel, who both lead Parker Avery...

In this episode of Talk Retail to Me , we kick off a series that will focus on specific business areas across retail and CPG.  Over the next few months, we’re going to take a deep dive into all areas of merchandising, planning, supply chain, forecasting, omnichannel, and more. For each of these business areas, Parker Avery's team of experts gets into basics and details, covering questions like: Wh...

This week, Clay Parnell , Parker Avery’s President and Managing Partner, and Tricia Gustin , Senior Director of Marketing, welcome retail industry leader Randi Nolan into the firm. Randi has an extensive list of executive titles across global retail and apparel brands—and her accomplishments are widely recognized throughout the industry.  The trio discusses Randi's extensive career in retail, as w...

This episode of Talk Retail to Me features Les McNeill , the Chief Technology Officer and founder of Impulselogic, Inc. , along with Parker Avery store operations experts, Senior Director Rob Oglesby , and Tricia Gustin, Senior Director of Marketing . The trio of experts talks about the causes of in-store inventory management issues as well how changes to the overall store inventory paradigm and b...

This week, Tricia Gustin is joined by Parker Avery's President and Managing Partner, Clay Parnell , along with Dave Seeley , who recently joined The Parker Avery Group as a Senior Manager. Dave brings a tremendous amount of retail industry experience, across operations, merchandising, and IT.  In this episode, we discuss Dave's extensive retail industry background, his continued interest in integr...

This week, we took a departure from our usual industry focus and talked about an initiative that’s near and dear to The Parker Avery Group's culture—our partnership with RetailROI and the JEDI Challenge.  We began this relationship early in 2021 with a sponsorship of RetailROI’s SuperFriday event, which led to another sponsorship of their March Gladness event . Those two events began a series of c...

This week, Tricia Gustin sat down with The Parker Avery Group's Chief Analytics Officer, Sam Iosevich , along with Senior Manager Dmitry Magas , who joined the firm almost exactly a year ago. The trio talked about Dmitry's analytics background and history with Sam, as well as some highlights of past client projects focused on forecasting and demand analytics .  They also discussed some recent Park...

Just in time for the holiday shopping frenzy, retail experts Kathi Toll , Heidi Csencsits, Carrie Habel , and Tricia Gustin discuss the recent launch of Homegoods' e-commerce platform , and the implications of this strategy on store operations, roles and responsibilities, merchandising, customer perception, inventory management, and more.  Enjoy this entertaining and casual conversation that not o...

This week, Chief Analytics Officer, Sam Iosevich, and Director of Analytics, Dinesh Helwade , discuss their decades-long working relationship as well as Dinesh's plans for the firm's analytics team in India.  Learn how their deep analytics expertise, combined with a strong organizational culture, create compelling analytics solutions for Parker Avery clients.  To learn more about Parker Avery's an...

In this episode, Parker Avery’s change management leader Kathi Toll , along with experts Carrie Habel and Heidi Csencsits talk about the firm’s best-of-breed approach to change management and why it raises the bar above more traditional methods.   In this lively discussion, the team touches on: Why a more tailored approach to change is needed in every client environment and project Situations wher...

After recently completing an in-depth change management initiative with popular retailer Abercrombie & Fitch , Parker Avery's change management leader, Kathi Toll , sat down with Dru Dominici , Director of Wholesale, and Tony Bradley , VP of Corporate Development, to discuss the need for more agile and adaptable organizations.  During this lively chat, the three experts also discuss John Kotte...

This week we're talking about Demand Intelligence , Parker Avery’s software-as-a-service demand planning platform.  Demand Intelligence is not only powered by the latest in advanced analytics and artificial intelligence, but it’s also driven by deep retail and CPG industry expertise .  One of the unique things about Demand Intelligence is that its development was informed with input from several g...

In this episode, assortment planning experts , Senior Manager Heidi Csencsits, hosts Principal Marty Anderson and Senior Manager Louann Villasor to discuss assortment planning.  The Parker Avery Group has seen tremendous interest in our clients for improving their assortment planning capabilities , not only bringing in new technology but also revamping business processes and organization to ensure...

In this episode, Partner Amanda Astrologo introduces one of the newest members of The Parker Avery Group, Senior Consultant Nia McDonald .  With over a decade of experience across a wide variety of retailers, retail segments, and CPG companies, Nia focuses on merchandise and sales planning, forecasting, and replenishment, as well as pricing and promotional strategies.   Amanda and Nia discuss her...

Organizational change management experts Kathi Toll , Deanna Emsley, and Marty Anderson talk about the new muscles retail and consumer brand companies must develop to be effective and competitive.  In this episode of Parker Avery's " Talk Retail to Me " podcast, the team discusses: Tenets that must be true for an organization to be effective Their experiences of going "back" into the office and tr...

This week President and Managing Partner Clay Parnell , along with Partner Amanda Astrologo and Senior Director Rob Oglesby discuss key areas retailers are focusing on now and where they must focus in the near future for effective retail inventory management .  This may come as a surprise, but it's less about technology and much more about core capabilities driven by business processes and a sizab...

This week, Senior Managers Heidi Csencsits and Mike Johnson talk about a recent client project , where The Parker Avery Group helped a home décor retailer define and standardize product attributes across 50,000 items to improve the omnichannel customer experience and merchandising effectiveness.  The two retail experts also outline the importance of strong master data management and governance as...

On this episode of the  Talk Retail to Me podcast , Parker Avery Senior Partner  Amanda Astrologo  and  Tricia Gustin interview retail expert Julie Cheney. Julie has over 25 years of experience as an executive and consultant in the retail and wholesale industries. She has held leadership positions in buying, merchandise planning & allocation, and program management within specialty apparel, fo...

The Parker Avery Group's analytics team gives their perspectives on finding the balance between artificial and emotional (human) intelligence.  Led by Chief Analytics Officer, Sam Iosevich , this team of mathematics PhDs has been continuously enhancing the firm's advanced analytics offerings for Parker Avery's clients.  In this episode, Scott Kirila, Evan Witz, and Luke Vaicunas discuss how intima...

Retail experts Marty Anderson and Russ Smith discuss how system implementation projects have fundamentally changed during the pandemic.  Based on their experience of halting solution implementation projects mid-stream when the pandemic first hit and then ramping back up months later, Marty and Russ highlight key considerations for implementation success, including: How the overall structure of imp...

In this episode, Parker Avery's Chief Analytics Officer and Managing Partner Sam Iosevich sits down with Senior Director of Analytics, George Arutyunyants to talk about George's lifelong journey into and through analytics, his development philosophies, and his passion for chasing challenges in his eternal pursuit of gaining more knowledge.  Discover how the saying, "We are born with two ears and o...

Parker Avery retail planning experts, LouAnn Villasor and Lee Whitaker, discuss how merchandise financial planning (MFP) has changed over the course of 2020.  Based on their deep experience implementing MFP solutions , you will get their perspectives on how retailers need to think differently in approaching MFP going forward into 2021 and beyond.  Learn more about The Parker Avery Group's services...