Channels sell from different inventory views, orders change status without explanation and returns are handled separately.
EMS Commerce suite
How to unify inventory, sales, stores and e-commerce around a reliable customer promise
Connect catalogue, availability, order, payment, fulfilment, delivery, return and customer relationship.
For: Commerce, retail, e-commerce, operations, supply chain, marketing and IT leadersWhat to clarify before discussing a solution
How can you promise what is truly available and keep that promise across every channel?
The answer does not lie in an isolated feature: it is built by connecting rules, actors, data and evidence.Omnichannel orchestration that makes the source of truth, allocation rules and exception journeys explicit.
Four decisions to make before configuration
These decisions make the scope testable and prevent structural choices from being discovered during the project.
Define sellable inventory by channel and horizon
The decision must specify the rule, its owner, the required data and the evidence used to accept it.
Arbitrate customer priority, channel, margin and availability
The decision must specify the rule, its owner, the required data and the evidence used to accept it.
Choose order statuses understood by everyone
The decision must specify the rule, its owner, the required data and the evidence used to accept it.
Close the loop across return, inventory, refund and customer relationship
The decision must specify the rule, its owner, the required data and the evidence used to accept it.
A readable end-to-end flow
Scope is not a list of modules. It is a chain of events, ownership and decisions.
1Catalogue and pricing
2Available-to-promise inventory
3Order and allocation
4Point of sale and e-commerce
5Delivery, returns and retention
In the first scoping
- One representative flow and its useful variants
- Authoritative events and minimum data
- Roles, decisions and escalation times
- Acceptance criteria and baseline measurement
To sequence in waves
- Additional sites, activities or populations
- Rare variants that do not condition the pilot
- Automations whose rule is not yet stable
- Advanced dashboards after source reliability
To decide explicitly
- Define sellable inventory by channel and horizon
- Arbitrate customer priority, channel, margin and availability
- Choose order statuses understood by everyone
- Close the loop across return, inventory, refund and customer relationship
From direction to measured improvement
- 1Navigator
- 2Personalised review
- 3Scoping workshop
- 4Wave-based deployment
- 5KPI measurement
Each stage produces a decision or evidence reusable in the next. Deployment remains business-led and verifiable.
Measure to decide, not to fill a dashboard
Every KPI needs a definition, a source, a cadence and an associated decision.
KPIFormulaSourceDecision
Conversion rateTransactions or orders ÷ visits or opportunitiesChannels, opportunities, baskets and ordersTarget breaks in the buying journey
Stockout rateUnfulfilled demand ÷ total demandDemand, availability and allocationsReview allocation, thresholds and replenishment
Order cycle timeAvailability time − validation timeOrder, allocation, picking and shippingIdentify the link slowing the promise
Return rateReturned units ÷ delivered unitsOrders, returns, reasons and qualityReduce avoidable causes by product and channel
06 · Business scenario
One promise for store and digital
- Situation
- A network sells in store and online, but reservations and inventory movements are not synchronised at the same pace.
- Approach
- Scoping defines inventory sources, allocation rules, the order cycle and exceptions, then tests one omnichannel journey end to end.
- Target outcome
- The promise becomes explainable and teams can act before variance becomes a complaint.
Useful answers before the first discussion
01Where should we start in practical terms?
Choose a representative scope spanning “Catalogue and pricing” and “Available-to-promise inventory”, then document one normal case and one frequent exception. The first flow should be important enough to matter but contained enough to observe end to end.
02Do all existing systems need replacing?
No. Scoping starts with decisions, authoritative events and ownership. It then determines what should be retained, integrated, replaced or simply better governed, wave by wave.
03What data should be prepared before a workshop?
Prepare a few real cases, the volumes shaping the operation, the main variance reasons and the sources used to measure Conversion rate. The quality of examples matters more than the quantity of documents.
04How should the right pilot scope be chosen?
Choose a scope with an available owner, accessible data, a meaningful exception and a measurable outcome. Avoid both an overly simple case that proves nothing and an overly broad scope that dilutes learning.
05How can scope changes during the project be limited?
Make assumptions, interfaces, variants, exceptions and acceptance criteria explicit. Every new request can then be classified: essential to the wave, suitable for a later wave, or outside the objective. Discussion focuses on impact rather than intuition.
Next step
Turn this guide into a personalised review
Complete Navigator to position your context, then use the review as the starting point for a scoping workshop.
- 1Navigator
- 2Personalised review
- 3Scoping workshop
- 4Wave-based deployment
- 5KPI measurement
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