Connecting enterprise planning, customer promises, sustainable operations and logistics execution
The Retail Summit 2027 Supply Chain Forum brings together retailers, brands and the supply-chain community across two days, four stages and twelve focused blocks. Each stage is organised around three connected decision areas.
The stages examine enterprise planning and decision ownership; the customer-facing logistics promise after the click; sustainability proof and operating execution; and the logistics model, capacity, partners and service economics behind the business promise. The stages remain separate because they involve different decisions, owners and professional responsibilities. Together, they show how choices in one area reshape the others.
Planning and inventory choices affect customer promises and capacity. Customer promises create fulfilment, returns and service requirements. Sustainability commitments change supplier, packaging, transport and infrastructure decisions. Logistics capability and service economics influence what the business can credibly plan, promise and fund.
DAY 1 Connects what the business decides with what it promises.
DAY 2 Focuses on what the supply chain must prove, organise and deliver.
DZIEŃ 1 | DECYZJE BIZNESOWE I OBIETNICE SKŁADANE KLIENTOM
Supply Chain Plenary
The enterprise decision layer: one credible plan, explicit inventory, working-capital and service trade-offs, and readiness to act when conditions change.
PLAN → BALANCE → ADAPT
1. Integrated Planning, S&OP/IBP & Decision Ownership
Create one credible plan across commercial, finance, supply chain and operations. S&OP/IBP is the shared planning rhythm in which assumptions are challenged and ownership of the resulting decisions is clear.
2. Inventory, Working Capital & Service-Level Trade Offs
Balance availability and service with inventory risk and the working capital tied up in stock. Service levels and flexibility become funded choices, not unspoken expectations.
3. Scenario Planning, Early Signals & Response Readiness
Decide which signals matter, which scenarios should be prepared and who has authority to act before volatility becomes cost, stock pressure or service failure.
Outcome: A clearer basis for creating one credible plan, balancing inventory, working capital and service, and responding earlier when conditions change.
eRetail & Omnichannel Logistics
The customer-facing promise after the click: realistic fulfilment and delivery commitments, returns that protect value and continuity when the normal path breaks.
PROMISE → RETURNS → CONTINUITY
1. Omnichannel Fulfilment & Delivery Promise
Set realistic fulfilment and delivery promises by channel, product and geography, with reliability and cost understood before the promise is made.
2. Returns & Value Recovery
Keep returns simple for customers while reducing avoidable returns, protecting margin and trust, and recovering stock value.
3. Omnichannel Resilience & Service Continuity
Define who acts when stock, systems, stores, warehouses or partners cannot support the normal fulfilment path, so service continues without relying on manual firefighting.
DAY 2 | WHAT THE SUPPLY CHAIN MUST PROVE, ORGANISE AND DELIVER
Sustainable Supply Chain & Operations
The operating reality behind sustainability commitments: credible proof, circular systems that work and feasible low emission choices.
PROOF → CIRCULAR OPERATIONS → FEASIBLE TRANSITION
1. Supplier Proof, Sustainability Data & Operational Readiness
Determine which supplier evidence, data ownership, claim verification and operating routines are needed before gaps create compliance, supply or credibility risk.
2. Circular Packaging, Returnable Assets & Recovery Operations
Make circularity work across packaging, returnable assets, deposit return systems, collection, sorting, recycling and recovery, not only in policy or design.
3. Low-Emission Logistics, Energy & Infrastructure Feasibility
Decide which logistics, energy and infrastructure moves are feasible now, which require sequencing and which are not yet workable without unacceptable effects on cost, capacity or service reliability.
eRetail & Omnichannel Logistics
The logistics structure behind the retail promise: operating model, capacity, partner governance and service that can be delivered and paid for.
MODEL → CAPACITY → SERVICE
1. In-House, Partner or Hybrid Logistics
Choose what should remain inside, what can be entrusted to partners and where a hybrid model best protects flexibility, know-how and control.
2. Warehouse, Transport & Labour Capacity
Plan the warehouse space, transport, labour and network capacity needed under uncertainty without locking the business into the wrong structure.
3. Service Levels & Cost-to-Serve
Decide what service can realistically be promised, what counts as an exception, who is accountable and what additional flexibility costs. Cost-to-serve is the true cost of serving a product, channel, customer or service promise.
Together, the four stages give retailers, brands and supply-chain leaders a connected view of planning, the customer promise, sustainability and logistics execution. Participants can go deeper into the discussions closest to their responsibilities while understanding how choices elsewhere in the supply chain influence their own results.
