Membership and customization in the line plan: a workstream to end the silo

What it is

Membership product and customization product were planned apart from the rest of Nike's line. The workstream's list of pain points says so: neither was in the category line plans from the start, and neither was on the tools sent to the geographies.

In October 2017 Nike Direct merchandising opened a workstream called Membership Programming and iD Integration. Its goal, in the plan's words, was "to fully integrate membership and iD into all relevant cross-functional Game Plan processes". The Game Plan was Nike's calendar of planning gates for each season.

The plan names Khounlavong as lead for merchandising, paired with a lead from process excellence, under a merchandising sponsor. Version seven is dated December 5, 2017.

What Khounlavong did

• Led the workstream with three areas of focus: putting membership and customization into the line and assortment plan, partnering with category and geography merchants, and using geography insights and metrics.
• Ran it in three phases from November 2017 to May 2018: identify, define and align, then socialize and activate. The team kicked off on October 13, pitched back on November 1, and met monthly.
• Owned the redesign of the assortment and line planning process, written as a "from" and a "to", due December 22, 2017.
• Owned the work with geography category leaders to align on market capacity and insights, due December 22, 2017.
• Owned the case to partners. He was to share the vision and value of membership and customization with category and cross-functional partners by January 31, 2018.
• Owned the feedback loop. He was to share market insights and sales results with all affected teams by March 30, 2018.
• Set the ask of the organization: include membership and customization in the line plan from inception, put both on every tool sent to the geographies, and agree the metrics that define success.
• Mapped what merchandising owed at each planning gate, for customization and for membership, in his organization deck of December 13, 2017. The map ran from receiving the categories' seasonal stories to sharing the final member offer with the geographies.

Results

• His record of fiscal 2018 lists three processes as implemented: customization built into the category line plan, merchandising strategy driven through the customization planning gates, and a global to geography integration pilot with North America Nike Direct merchandising.
• His year-end review states that merchandising had become part of the key gates and meetings of the customization business.
• The Nike By You strategy update of August 2018 describes the shift from a "team on an island" in fiscal 2017 to a team "integrated into the Nike offense" in fiscal 2018.
• His fiscal 2019 to 2021 plan kept the work going, with "partner with categories at line planning" as one of four accelerators.

At a glance