This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Fisher, M. Search for Related Content

OR FORUM–Rocket Science Retailing: The 2006 Philip McCord Morse Lecture

The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104
fisher{at}wharton.upenn.edu

Retailing is a huge industry. In the United States, retail business represents about 40% of the economy and is the largest employer. Retail supply chain management is still more art than science, but this is changing rapidly as retailers begin to apply analytic models to the huge volume of data they are collecting on consumer purchases and preferences. This industry-wide movement resembles the transformation of Wall Street that occurred in the 1970s when physicists and other "rocket scientists" applied their analytic skills to investment decisions.

The Consortium for Operational Excellence in Retailing (COER) (codirected by Ananth Raman, Harvard Business School, and myself) is a group of academics working with about 50 leading retailers to assess their progress towards rocket science retailing and to accelerate that progress through selected research projects.

After some brief comments on the current state of industry practice in retail supply chain management, this paper will describe examples of COER research in four areas: assortment planning, pricing, inventory optimization, and store execution.

Subject classifications: retailing; assortment optimization; forecasting; inventory management; store execution; pricing.
History: Received December 2007; revision received December 2008; accepted December 2008.