P Program
Home Decor Spring Launch
A nationwide Home initiative requiring a major assortment transformation and precise coordination across merchants, suppliers, replenishment, transportation, and distribution operations.
Type
Program
Core Competency
Commercialization and Launch Readiness
$122.6M
initiative scope
50%
assortment transformation
17 weeks
planning cycle
25+
suppliers aligned
10+
replenishment partners
83% → 100%
receiving-window compliance
67% → 88%
on-time delivery
72% → 93%
store invoicing readiness
Context or Challenge
The $122.6M initiative involved a 50% assortment transformation. Prior launches had struggled with receiving-window compliance and on-time delivery, creating risk of incomplete store sets, unavailable inventory, and a poor customer experience.
Observation
The largest risk was not one isolated transportation or inventory issue. The largest risk was whether many teams could make the right decisions at the right time.
Insight
The program needed a launch-readiness operating model with early milestones, supplier enablement, shared visibility, and clear escalation paths.
My Thinking
I reframed the work from shipment monitoring to commercialization readiness. The planning model connected supplier preparedness, order timing, transportation readiness, distribution capacity, store invoicing, and launch milestones.
What I Built or Led
I served as Merchant Relations Program Lead across a 17-week planning cycle, aligning Merchandising, Replenishment, Transportation, Supplier Operations, more than 25 suppliers, and more than 10 replenishment partners. The ownership model and execution cadence below show how that alignment actually ran, week to week.
Featured Capability: Program Management Operating Model
- Defined a five-layer ownership model -- Strategy, Readiness, Execution, Launch, and Benefits Realization -- so every team knew exactly which decisions were theirs to make and which decisions belonged to someone else
- Sat in the Readiness layer as the translation point between Merchandising's strategy and the plans Suppliers, Transportation, and DC Operations needed to execute against, from pre-order creation through final store delivery
- Ran a recurring, milestone-based cadence across the 17-week cycle -- kickoff and intake, order creation, procurement handoff, transportation routing, load audits, and launch -- with a named Program Management action at every phase
- Closed the loop after launch by routing sales, margin, delivery, and supplier-performance results back to Merchandising as lessons learned for the next launch
Program Ownership Model
In general terms, the program ran on a five-layer ownership model. Merchandising and Replenishment set strategy at the top. Program Management owned Readiness -- translating that strategy into a plan Suppliers, Transportation, and DC Operations could execute against in the Execution layer. Store Operations owned Launch, and Program Management came back alongside Merchandising to own Benefits Realization, closing the loop on results.
Execution Timeline & Cadence
The same cycle, broken into the phases Program Management actively drove. Each phase had a defined Program Management action -- confirm, escalate, mobilize, audit, hand off -- and a recurring set of cross-functional check-ins ran underneath the whole timeline to keep suppliers, transportation, and store teams aligned to one date.
Launch or Adoption Strategy
The program used milestone-based readiness reviews, supplier communications, risk tracking, cross-functional issue resolution, and leadership visibility to move concerns upstream before launch.
Business Impact
- Receiving-window compliance improved from 83% to 100%, a 17-point gain
- On-time delivery improved from 67% to 88%, a 21-point gain
- Store invoicing readiness improved from 72% to 93%, a 21-point gain
Key Takeaway
“Large launches become more reliable when readiness is managed as an operating system rather than a last-minute status check.”
Capabilities Demonstrated
- Commercialization
- Launch readiness
- Supplier enablement
- Cross-functional governance
- Risk management
- Retail execution
- Stakeholder leadership
- Program cadence design