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1. Introduction
The increasing competitive retail business requires ever greater customer orientation and operational efficiencies. Consumers are always demanding higher service levels and better purchase prices. Retailers aim for broader product variety, more profitable sales prices and lower costs ([34] Hübner and Kuhn, 2012), and are growing vertically by encompassing more logistical functions ([16] Fernie et al. , 2010). Despite heavy investments in infrastructure and IT, retailers are still losing potential revenue due to their inability to get the right goods to the right places at the right time (e.g. [20] Friend and Walker, 2001; [26] Gruen et al. , 2002, [61] Thonemann et al. , 2005; [4] Agrawal and Smith, 2009; [10] Curseu et al. , 2009). Effective structures and planning tools for demand and supply chain planning (DSCP) are therefore basic requirements for coordinating thousands of individual decisions in supply chain and customer management. If demand and supply plans are not aligned, retailers need to either solve logistical issues with expensive ad hoc solutions or to mark-down oversupplied goods. Both deteriorate the profit base. Consequently, retailers need efficient modelling and decision making techniques ([40] Kopalle, 2010; [34] Hübner and Kuhn, 2012).
DSCP is very complex. While retail managers strive to follow the industry mantra "retail is detail," not every detail of the actual execution level can be reflected in the planning process. One core proposal in DSCP is therefore to abstract from reality and to use models as a basis for plans. Retail research literature is rich in decision support systems (DSSs) for individual planning problems. However, the clear focus lies on isolated planning issues rather than on an integrated planning perspective that takes into account interdependencies between individual problems. [17] Fisher and Raman (2010, p. 127) note that "retailers have three tactics at their disposal for matching supply with demand: accurate forecasting, supply flexibility and inventory stockpiling." We want to broaden this perspective by constituting a holistic framework that is based on an integral planning perspective from consumer to supplier and the application of comprehensive DSSs.
However, retail practice and research lack such a holistic framework. Our contribution therefore resides in developing a comprehensive operations planning framework that identifies and integrates all relevant planning aspects. The framework structures the planning problems according...