Citizen Watch: Building Nonstop Agility with Timeless Connected Planning

Tradition, craftsmanship, and timeless design all characterize the watch industry. But Citizen Watch is taking on a new kind of precision, one powered by connected planning. Glenn Pascrell, Executive Vice President of Merchandise Planning, describes the company’s transformation as a fundamental shift in how it manages complexity, connects global teams, and responds to a changing marketplace.

With over 10,000 physical retail points in the U.S. alone, a growing e-commerce presence, and thousands of SKUs across multiple regions, Citizen’s supply chain is as intricate as the watches it produces. “We think of our enterprise like a living organism,” says Pascrell. “It’s complex, constantly moving, and deeply interconnected.” To support that complexity, Citizen needed a planning solution capable of harmonizing financial, demand, and supply decisions across functions, channels, and geographies.

Channel shift and the need for real-time agility

The catalyst for Citizen’s transformation was strategic. As younger consumers gravitated to online channels, the brand had to balance growth in e-commerce with its deep roots in wholesale and retail. “The migration of consumers from physical stores to online is accelerating,” Pascrell explains. “But we’re still in 10,000 physical stores, and half our business remains in wholesale. That creates real challenges in segmentation, promotion strategy, and inventory distribution.”

This shift exposed the need for a more dynamic and unified approach to planning. Planners were thinking a season ahead. Commercial teams were focused on this season. The organization needed a common foundation to bridge that gap, aligning short-term execution with long-term strategy across all channels.

A single, flexible platform for connected planning

Citizen’s planning group oversees everything from merchandise financial planning to purchasing and inventory management. But legacy systems and siloed processes made it difficult to reconcile sales plans with actual demand and supply capacity. “We wanted one cloud-based solution that could connect top-down financial targets with bottom-up forecasting and supply decisions,” says Pascrell. “o9 was the partner that stood out.”

The decision came down to three factors. First, o9 offered an integrated suite (merchandise financial planning, demand planning, and supply planning) all in one platform. Second, it balanced robust out-of-the-box functionality with flexibility. “We needed a solution we could tailor to our business,” Pascrell explains. “o9 gave us that flexibility while also bringing planning best practices to the table.”

Third, and perhaps most importantly, was the long-term partnership. “I’ve never worked with a software provider more invested in our success,” he says. “There’s a customer success team that works closely with our center of excellence. It’s not a handoff. It’s continuous improvement.”

From private allocations to intelligent inventory decisions

One of the most transformative changes came in inventory allocation. Previously, Citizen operated over 400 separate allocation locations, each one tied to a specific account or channel. Inventory sent to one location was invisible to the rest of the network. “There was no logic, no network. It was incredibly siloed,” Pascrell recalls. “We had stock locked away in corners of the business where it couldn’t be shared or optimized.”

Today, that number is fewer than 10. With o9, allocation is driven by forecast signals and account priority, automatically rebalancing inventory where it’s needed most.

The result? Faster inventory turns, better availability, and increased support for Citizen’s growing e-commerce business, including Citizenwatch.com and Bulovawatch.com. “We’re complementing strategic growth with smart execution,” he says. “The allocation system is a huge part of that.”

Measuring success through accuracy and productivity

To support better decision-making, Citizen has also invested in demand forecasting precision. The team transitioned to a POS-based forecasting model and brought on a dedicated data scientist to partner with o9 on algorithm tuning, outlier correction, and statistical modeling. “We’re hitting much higher forecast accuracy now, even for SKUs with irregular demand patterns,” Pascrell notes.

The ability to explain and defend that accuracy, to link planning to actual POS data, has helped drive alignment across teams.

Operationally, the productivity gains have been substantial. Planners spend less time fine-tuning forecasts and more time on higher-value analysis. Inventory has been reduced significantly across key divisions, and replenishment decisions are now informed by dynamic safety stock and ordering recommendations within o9’s supply planning solution.

Creating a culture of continuous improvement

One of the biggest lessons from Citizen’s transformation was the importance of change management. Pascrell is candid about the pushback they received, especially when shifting away from private inventory allocations. “We had to win hearts and minds,” he says. “There was fear that shared inventory meant giving up control. We had to train, explain, and prove the value.”

This investment in trust-building paid off. “We created a system that’s not only more efficient, but actually gives teams what they need more reliably,” he explains. “It just looks different than what they were used to.”

Looking ahead, Citizen plans to expand o9 to other markets in its group, including the UK, Canada, and Latin America, as those regions migrate to SAP S/4HANA. The long-term vision includes a centralized global planning hub that manages purchasing and distribution for all markets, enabled by a shared demand signal and seamless forecast integration.

Agility through architecture and alignment

In the end, Citizen’s planning transformation is centered on more than software. It’s focused on agility, organizing people, processes, and data around a shared goal and building the capacity to respond to change.

“Planning isn’t just about better forecasts,” says Pascrell. “It’s about becoming a more agile company, one that can adapt quickly to shifts in consumer behavior, product trends, and channel dynamics.”

With o9, Citizen has found a platform—and a partner—that supports that ambition. From intelligent allocation to low-touch enrichment to strategic forecasting, they are redefining what good looks like in modern planning.
“Better starts now,” Pascrell says, echoing Citizen’s company motto. “That’s the mindset we bring to our planning transformation, and it’s the mindset we’ve found in o9.”

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