The problem: the product line was growing faster than the process around it
Kizik’s product engine was accelerating. What had started with a handful of footwear models was expanding into a much broader line, with more categories, more markets, and more teams involved. The business was putting new people, processes, and calendars in place to support that growth, but its core product workflow still depended heavily on Excel and PowerPoint.
- The line lived across spreadsheets and presentations
Kizik managed and planned the line in an Excel file on a shared folder, then used separate presentations to visualize the products. Keeping the two synchronized meant constant manual work.
- Every change created more reconciliation
New costing information, forecast changes, product edits, and assortment decisions all had to be carried through the existing files manually. That became increasingly difficult as the line expanded. Teams needed to evaluate SKU count, SKU productivity, pricing, forecasting, and the shape of the assortment while the product itself was constantly changing.
- Milestone reviews consumed days of preparation
At every major product milestone, the merchandising team had to rebuild the latest product story from the underlying data. Preparing a line plan for a review could take Heather Kananowicz, VP of Merchandising, roughly a week because the decisions from one stage had to be reconciled before the next meeting.
- A traditional PLM implementation did not fit the immediate need
Kizik had considered PLM, but the team did not want to introduce a lengthy implementation while already managing rapid growth and increasing complexity. “Standing up a PLM system in the midst of everything we were dealing with in terms of growth and complexity, it was going to take too long,” said Gretchen Weimer, Chief Merchandising Officer at Kizik. What the team needed first was a way to connect remote teams, plan the line visually, work with live product information, and make the evolving assortment visible across functions.
“Standing up a PLM system in the midst of everything we were dealing with in terms of growth and complexity, it was going to take too long.”
Gretchen Weimer, Chief Merchandising Officer
The solution: make the evolving line the place where teams work
Kizik brought VibeIQ into the product process as the shared environment connecting the line, its visuals, and the information changing around it.
- Put product visuals and data in the same place
Instead of maintaining a product list in Excel and the visual line separately in PowerPoint, teams could work from one current product definition and use it differently depending on their role. Heather described VibeIQ as becoming a single source of truth that multiple functions could view at the same time, whether they needed the underlying data, a visual assortment, or a seasonal merchandising view.
- Run design and product reviews from the live line
Kizik began using VibeIQ from the initial brief through design review and major product milestones. Designers could add concepts alongside the brief and commercial information, teams could leave feedback directly on the work, and merchandising could assess colour and assortment decisions visually. At milestone meetings, Heather could present directly from VibeIQ and make decisions during the review, including dropping products, changing prices, adjusting introduction dates, and changing the flow of the line. Everyone then saw the updated information rather than waiting for another round of deck and spreadsheet updates.
- Use the same line across functions
Giving more people access to the current information improved visibility and reduced dependence on tightly controlled spreadsheet files. Heather said the broader visibility helped improve accuracy, while automation reduced manual errors and made the underlying data more reliable.
- Start quickly and expand from there
Kizik began with roughly 130 historical SKUs to transfer. Heather said the VibeIQ team handled most of the setup after receiving the existing file, with Kizik primarily reviewing the result for accuracy. The initial setup took roughly a month to a month and a half, followed by refinement in the environment, and Heather described the team as live in about two months. Continued weekly touchpoints then allowed the workflow to evolve alongside the business.
“Something that probably would have taken me a week to do, now probably takes me a day or less.”
Heather Kananowicz, VP of Merchandising
The results
- Line-plan preparation dropped from a week to a day or less
One of the clearest changes was the work required before a major review. “Something that probably would have taken me a week to do, now probably takes me a day or less,” shared Heather. The difference was that the decisions had already been captured as they happened. Instead of spending the week rebuilding the line, Heather could focus on reviewing the information, presentation flow, and decisions that still needed to be made.
- Sales-sample planning dropped from four or five days to roughly 24 hours
After finalizing the line, Kizik needed channel and market teams to submit sales-sample quantities. Previously, that meant distributing another spreadsheet and manually consolidating the responses. With VibeIQ, each channel could enter its requirements against the same line. Heather said a process that had taken four or five days could now be completed within a 24-hour submission window.
- Product decisions became visible immediately
Kizik could make changes during milestone meetings and have them reflected in the current line immediately. That reduced the lag between a decision being made and other teams seeing the result. It also gave more functions access to the same product information while reducing the manual errors that came from repeatedly moving data between files.
- The process supported a much more complex product line
As Kizik expanded from a small initial collection toward roughly 18 to 20 footwear models and moved into additional categories, VibeIQ gave the team a way to manage more complexity without continuing to multiply spreadsheets and presentation rebuilds.