Video Interview
Why This Story Matters
Hawes & Curtis shows how retail planning teams can move beyond Excel and legacy systems to improve merchandise planning, WSSI, and reporting. Board gives merchandising teams and finance stakeholders shared visibility into retail performance at the level of detail modern retail requires. A Monday reporting process that previously took 2.5 hours now takes less than 10 minutes, giving the team more time to analyze performance and act on insights.
Key Learnings
- Learning 1: Merchandise planning needs speed and detail. Hawes & Curtis needed faster access to trusted data across channels, stores, areas, and SKUs.
- Learning 2: Finance and merchandising need shared performance data. Board helps both teams work from the same retail performance view, aligning financial plans with merchandise execution.
- Learning 3: Real-time reporting improves retail decision-making. Teams can now understand performance day to day, week to week, and month to month without waiting for manual reports.
- Learning 4: Modern planning platforms reduce legacy complexity. Board replaces Excel-heavy work and clunky systems with a more flexible and scalable planning process.
The Company
Hawes & Curtis is a British formalwear retailer founded in London in 1913 by Ralph Hawes and George Frederic Curtis. With a heritage rooted in Jermyn Street shirtmaking and tailoring, the company is known for formalwear, shirts, and smart apparel. Today, Hawes & Curtis operates a UK retail footprint of around 15 stores, alongside its online business and international reach.
As the business grew, Hawes & Curtis needed a planning and reporting environment that could support faster decisions, greater flexibility, and better alignment across teams, from high-level business views down to channel, store, area, and SKU-level detail.
Board allows our finance and merchandising teams to work from one version of the truth. That alignment is critical because it helps us plan well, execute those plans, and understand whether we achieved what we set out to do.
Chris Chmiewliski
The Challenge: Excel and legacy systems slowed retail merchandise planning
Before Board, Hawes & Curtis relied heavily on Excel and legacy systems for merchandising work. These tools created manual work, reporting delays, limited flexibility, and made allocations, planning, and reporting harder to manage.
The business also faced a costly choice: replacing the existing cube structure would cost more than £160,000 per year simply to replicate what was already there, without solving the underlying planning and reporting limitations.
Hawes & Curtis also needed merchandising and finance teams to review the same performance signals, so plans could be created, executed, and reviewed consistently as customer expectations, market trends, and economic pressure evolved.
Chris Chmiewliski
Before Board, we were heavily relying on Excel. We wanted to move towards being a more dynamic company. We wanted to have one version of the truth and the ability to be flexible with the data that we have.
The Solution: Unified Merchandise Financial Planning, WSSI, and Reporting
Hawes & Curtis selected Board to create a more dynamic planning environment. Board stood out because it could provide shared performance data for both merchandising and finance.
The implementation brings together merchandise financial planning, WSSI, range planning, and reporting. This allows Hawes & Curtis to move from high-level merchandise planning views into the detailed reporting and performance analysis teams use day to day. Reporting closes the loop by showing whether plans were achieved, whether they were realistic, and where learnings can be applied.
Board also gave Hawes & Curtis retail-relevant capabilities that were missing from previous systems, including
- live data
- granular drill-down by channel, store, area, and SKU
- and dynamic SKU imagery within reporting.
This helps teams understand product performance faster, without relying only on product codes or manual checks.
Why Board was chosen
Board was selected because Hawes & Curtis needed to reduce manual error, remove process friction, and move beyond fragmented spreadsheet-based planning and legacy systems.
During the selection process, Board helped the team understand what was achievable and how similar retailers used the platform. That retail knowledge, combined with Board’s planning and reporting capabilities, showed how the platform could support both immediate reporting needs and future merchandise planning ambitions.
Chris Chmiewliski
Board stood out because it provides one version of the truth. It also gives us a full stream of services, from MFP and WSSI to reporting and soon to range planning, so we can dig into the information that is valuable to us at a higher or lower level.
Connecting Merchandising and Finance
The core value of the Board project is the alignment between merchandising and finance. Board helps Hawes & Curtis connect strategic objectives with day-to-day execution. Merchandising and finance can work from shared retail performance data, track whether plans are being achieved, and adjust based on the latest business reality.
This supports a more continuous planning approach, where teams can understand performance as it changes and respond faster when plans need to adjust.
Faster reporting for more confident retail decisions
Reporting has become one of the most immediate and visible benefits of Board. Before Board, the team ran 32 reports every Monday and spent 2.5 hours just getting to one version of the truth.
With Board, the same Monday reporting process now takes less than 10 minutes, a 93% reduction in reporting time. That gives the team faster access to performance insights and more time to focus on decisions rather than manual preparation.
Board also lets the team drill into performance by day, week, or month, turning reporting from a retrospective exercise into an always-on capability for understanding business performance and taking action.
Reporting allows us to see in real time what is going on. It helps us understand whether we are where we want to be or whether we still have work to do.
Chris Chmiewliski
Range planning as the next opportunity
Range and assortment planning is central to how Hawes & Curtis operates across buying, design, merchandising, and technology. Before Board, this work was handled through Excel and legacy systems, making planning more cumbersome and less flexible.
With Board now providing a stronger foundation for merchandise financial planning, WSSI, and reporting, Hawes & Curtis has a platform that can also support range and assortment planning. This next step will help make planning even more seamless, accessible, and collaborative across the teams involved in bringing products to market.
The platform feels familiar for Excel users but provides a more robust and user-friendly environment. Teams can access information quickly, without worrying about file loss, version control, or disconnected reports.
The Benefits: Faster reporting, stronger alignment, and better merchandise visibility
- 93% faster Monday reporting, reducing 32 reports and 2.5 hours of manual work to less than 10 minutes.
- Aligned merchandising and finance teams working from shared retail performance data.
- Faster merchandise planning decisions across channels, stores, areas, and SKUs.
- Timely visibility into retail performance, helping teams understand whether plans are on track.
- Stronger WSSI, range planning, and reporting foundation in one unified planning environment.
- Reduced Excel and legacy-system dependency, lowering manual effort, reporting delays, and risk of error.
- Better product-level insight through SKU imagery, making product performance easier to understand.
Chris Chmiewliski
Board is so user-friendly compared to Excel and legacy systems. Our teams can access the information they need within minutes or seconds. We all wonder why we didn’t have it earlier. It’s truly a great program that will change your business.
Conclusion
Hawes & Curtis is using Board to move from fragmented, Excel-heavy merchandise planning and reporting toward a more connected way of working across merchandising and finance. By linking merchandise financial planning, OTB/WSSI, and reporting, Board gives the business the visibility and flexibility to keep pace with retail change.
The immediate impact is clear: Monday reporting now takes less than 10 minutes instead of 2.5 hours.
The broader value is strategic: Board helps Hawes & Curtis align plans with execution, improve merchandise visibility, and make more confident decisions based on trusted, real-time data.
