Logical 10200 - Enterprise - Merchandise View

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Subject Area Concepts

The Enterprise Merchandise View subject area shows how Item is placed into a MerchandiseHierarchyGroup; and how merchandise hierarchy groups are grouped together in a fashion similar to BusinessUnitGroup hierarchies. The ARTS Operational Data Model uses this generalized approach for modeling what many retailers view as departments and classes in order to support international and unique retail organizational structures.

MerchandiseHierarchyFunction allows the retailer to define different hierarchies for different business processes (for example: Sales Reporting, Merchandise Planning, etc.) MerchandiseHierarchyLevel allows the retailer to define the names of the levels, in the order the retailer prefers, for each of those business functions. (for example: Item - Group - Class - Department).

The subject area's merchandise hierarchy (in the pink block) and business unit hierarchy (yellow block) are joined at the Item level through the BusinessUnitGroupItem.  This approach creates a flexible way for retailers to analyze their sales and operations from a combined organization and merchandise point of view.  This is important for international retailers that may apply different merchandise hierarchies to different business unit groups based national and cultural customer preferences.  Reporting can be tailored to each region (business unit group) while at the same time consolidated into a world-wide view for enterprise reporting.

The degree of flexibility (and complexity) reflected in this melding of merchandise and business unit groupings is determined by how retailers populate the hierarchy structures and the cross reference them through BusinessUnitGroupItem.