Chicago-based SD Retail Consulting and Atlanta-based Johnson Stephens Consulting, jointly announced the formation of a strategic alliance to deliver a comprehensive portfolio of professional advisory services focused on improving retail operations. The relationship expands the services of the practices to include strategic advisory and tactical execution assistance related to merchandising, sourcing, supply chain operations, workforce management, customer experience, store execution, transportation, outsourcing and corporate effectiveness.

Steve Johnson, principal & COO of Johnson Stephens Consulting, stated, “Our alliance with SD Retail Consulting facilitates improvement of total supply chain operating efficiencies for our clients. The opportunity to include sourcing, merchandising, inventory, store operations, distribution, and transportation expertise in strategic planning and operations execution efforts will be of great benefit to retailers in all channels, whether through e-commerce, catalog, social media or brick and mortar stores. SD Retail provides added depth to our logistics network optimization practice, through their extensive experience deploying Llamasoft’s state of the art Supply Chain Guru optimization software modeling suite. SD’s global breadth and depth in store operations, merchandising, workforce management, and strategic growth plans provide our clients a holistic, end to end and highly integrated set of solutions. We are excited that the SD Retail culture and commitment to implementing collaborative solutions with clients, aligns fully with the Johnson Stephens Consulting mission of being action leaders, not just thought leaders.”

Davis Jackson, EVP and COO of SD Retail Consulting, LLC, added, “Real world retail client successes have proven that the SD Retail and JSC teams are ideal complements in skills and culture. Our combined supply chain skills and tool kits cover the spectrum of evolving retail and consumer supply chain needs and extends the reach of our highly specialized store operations, merchandising, workforce management, real estate and strategic growth teams.”

SD Retail Consulting is a provider of process improvement and business consulting to retailers and consumer businesses.

Johnson Stephens Consulting is a supply chain operations consulting firm that specializes in providing strategic logistics network design, distribution center MHE design, labor management systems, transportation management, construction project management, and lean improvement services to retail, wholesale, fulfillment, third-party logistics and consumer goods supply chain operations.