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How AI-Driven Demand Forecasting Connects the Entire Retail Lifecycle
Even the smallest brands and retailers need to sense how much inventory will be needed for the day to carry the right inventory needed to achieve maximum sell through and minimize discounts.
Add in the complexities of a larger, global company with hundreds or thousands of SKUs and the forecasting challenge becomes even more daunting.
“Demand is typically the most important piece of input that goes into the operations of a company,” according to Rupal Deshmukh, a Partner in the Strategic Operations practice at Kearney in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “Poor demand forecast accuracy equals cash out the door.”1
The latest eBook, “How to Drive Business Growth During the Evolution of AI-Powered Demand Forecasting” explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming forecasting roles and driving better outcomes across the entire retail planning lifecycle.
1 Adam Blair, “AI in Action: How Retailers are Transforming Demand Forecasting with New Tech,” Retail TouchPoints, March 17, 2025.
AI shifts demand forecasting roles
The roles of merchandise planners, allocators, buyers, sales and pricing teams are evolving. These teams are moving beyond spreadsheets and manual updates to make faster, more strategic, data-driven decisions. For example:
The merchandise planner/financial planner has evolved from a spreadsheet-heavy number cruncher to a strategic decision maker. AI frees this role to focus on high-value planning and cross-functional alignment.
The buyer/merchant/assortment planner has evolved from intuition-led buying to data-validated assortment curation. AI strengthens creative decisions with predictive confidence.
The pricing/lifecycle management team has evolved from static pricing operators to lifecycle strategists. AI enables more responsive, profit-protecting price management across the season.
While this is just a sampling, the key takeaway is that brands and retailers “need to build on the pockets of goodness that AI is creating,“ where using external market signals to augment forecast accuracy has led to improvements by as much as 10 to 20 percentage points.1
Business benefits to connecting the retail lifecycle
With AI-driven demand forecasting from Centric Software, retailers and brands can model demand with greater accuracy, reduce inventory risk and respond more confidently to shifting consumer behavior. The result is smarter, faster decision making across every stage of the product lifecycle.
AI-powered forecasting empowers teams to:
- Improve accuracy in categories with limited or volatile data
- Minimize overproduction and reduce excess inventory
- Align assortment, pricing and supply strategies to financial targets
- Increase agility with dynamic scenario modeling
- Enable more informed investment and growth decisions
AI does more than improve accuracy. It connects the entire retail planning lifecycle—from pre-season planning and in-season allocation to end-of-life markdowns—ensuring every decision is data-informed and aligned to business goals.
Learn how in the latest “How to Drive Business Growth During the Evolution of AI-Powered Demand Forecasting” eBook, including in-depth details on the AI-driven platform that is transforming businesses with real results.