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It’s the Gap Between Plan and Performance. Executive Answer Merchandise Financial Planning is widely adopted. According to Coresight Research, 96 percent of retailers report they use MFP software. Yet 64 percent still struggle to execute it effectively due…
Merchandise Financial Planning is widely adopted. According to Coresight Research, 96 percent of retailers report they use MFP software. Yet 64 percent still struggle to execute it effectively due to disconnected data, slow in-season adjustments, and limited use of AI.
The gap is not capability. It is the ability to drive planning consensus AND better decisions across the retail enterprise.
Retailers have planning tools. What they lack is synchronized financial, merchandising, and inventory decisions in a season. Leaders close this gap by embedding real-time signals into unified decision flows. That discipline delivers measurable outcomes, including 6 percent average gross sales uplift, 1.1 percentage point margin expansion, and 12 percent reduction in leftover inventory.
The issue is not planning maturity. It is decision orchestration maturity.
Nearly two-thirds of retailers are not extracting full value from the systems they already have.
Coresight identifies the top execution barriers as:
These are not feature gaps. They are structural misalignments between:
That distinction matters.
If you want to understand how retail leaders are addressing these structural blockers and where your organization stands relative to the data, read the full Coresight report.
Unlocking Success in Retail Merchandise Planning To Drive Sales and Profitability
MFP execution is not about forecasting mechanics.
It is about capital deployment.
Every OTB decision is a capital allocation choice.
Every assortment depth decision is a risk-adjusted investment.
Every allocation move is a margin exposure.
When execution breaks down:
When execution is coherent:
This is why leaders see a 12 percent reduction in leftover inventory and measurable margin expansion.
The gap is not technical. It is orchestration maturity.
49 percent cite lack of real-time data and insights as a top execution challenge.
But real-time dashboards do not solve execution gaps.
Execution requires:
Without alignment, speed increases volatility.
With alignment, speed increases advantage.
That is the deeper insight in the Coresight findings.
Coresight highlights that AI capabilities are widely embedded in MFP tools.
But most AI usage is concentrated in foundational tasks such as workflow automation and predictive analytics.
Advanced use cases like scenario planning and personalization remain underutilized.
That tells us something important.
Retailers are digitizing planning.
They are not yet elevating it.
The next competitive edge will not come from automation.
It will come from AI-supported trade-off simulation before capital is committed.
That is a structural shift.
Retail planning maturity has historically been measured by forecast accuracy.
Coresight’s data suggests the next maturity curve is different.
It is about coherence.
Coherence means:
That requires:
This is not incremental improvement.
It is architectural.
The MFP execution gap refers to the difference between widespread adoption of Merchandise Financial Planning software and the 64 percent of retailers who still struggle to execute MFP effectively in season.
Coresight identifies three primary barriers: lack of real-time data and insights, lack of a unified platform connecting financial and inventory decisions, and limited responsiveness to market shifts.
Retailers report 6 percent gross sales uplift, 1.1 percentage point margin expansion, and 12 percent reduction in leftover inventory on average.
Yes. AI capabilities are widely embedded in MFP solutions. However, advanced use cases such as scenario planning and personalization remain underutilized.
The biggest issue is misalignment between financial intent, merchandise decisions, and inventory execution. Execution maturity depends on synchronized decision-making across functions.
Retailers achieving measurable margin and inventory improvements are not simply running MFP.
They are:
They have shifted from isolated planning functions to connected retail decision systems.
Volatility is no longer episodic.
Tariffs, consumer trading down, channel fragmentation, and demand variability are structural forces.
In that environment:
Execution maturity becomes a structural differentiator.
The Coresight custom report goes deeper into:
👉 Explore the Full Research:
Unlocking Success in Retail Merchandise Planning To Drive Sales and Profitability
Reading about execution maturity is analytical.
Seeing financial, merchandising, and supply decisions operate in one continuous retail planning flow is operational.
Request a live session to explore how:
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