Merchandising & Buying
Supplier cost increase challenge analysis
Assess supplier cost increase requests against input cost indices, currency movement, and comparable supplier pricing, producing an evidence-based position for the buyer before the negotiation.
10–25%
reduction in accepted cost increase value
Opportunity assessment
Moderate impact. Meaningful cost or revenue improvement, likely noticeable at function level but modest relative to total business scale.
Moderate effort. Requires configuration, prompt engineering, and testing. A capable team can get there but expect several months.
Demanding data requirements. Relies on clean, integrated data across multiple systems. Significant data preparation work typically needed.
Low risk. Limited external exposure. A human reviews output before it reaches anyone outside the team.
Moderate people impact. Part of someone's working day changes. Requires training and some adjustment time, but roles remain broadly the same.
Tooling required
Things to consider
Cost increase requests arrive faster than buyers can analyse them, so the default answer becomes partial acceptance. Even a rough evidence pack shifts that default.
You need the bill of materials to link a supplier's claimed input inflation to a published index. Without it the analysis is a general argument about inflation, which suppliers win.
Do not let the analysis run the relationship. A supplier squeezed on evidence alone will find the recovery elsewhere — in service, in spec, or in the next negotiation.
Experiment starter: Take the last twenty cost increase requests you accepted. Rebuild the evidence position for each and quantify the gap between what was accepted and what the evidence supported. That gap, annualised, is the case.
Go deeper in the playbook
Section — Opportunity Identification, including the AI Opportunity Assessment ScorecardSection — RAG and Knowledge Systems: Unlocking Proprietary DataThis is an decision support opportunity — see the relevant playbook section for how to approach it.More in Merchandising & Buying
Product description writing
Generate first-draft product descriptions from attributes, imagery, and brand guidelines. Buying team reviews, edits, and approves before publish.
Supplier spec sheet extraction
Extract structured product data from unstructured supplier spec sheets, PDFs, and email attachments. Outputs clean records ready for system upload.
Range review analysis
Summarise sales performance, markdown rates, and return data by category to surface underperformers and inform ranging decisions.
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