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Retano is returning to Forum Retail in Milan on 11–12 November to present the Retano Digital Platform: five modules that connect assortment, shelf space, store execution, demand forecasting and customer relationships on shared data.
Forum Retail has been the meeting point for people working in Italian retail and grocery for 26 years. The 2026 edition takes place at Superstudio Più in Milan. Retano is exhibiting at its own stand, and its Country Manager Gianni Cassano speaks at two sessions on 11 November.
Retail chains do not lack data. Information on shelves, stock and customers already exists, but it sits in separate systems that rarely exchange it. The result is slow or inconsistent decisions, many of which never reach the store. The Retano Digital Platform is built to remove that fragmentation: each module works on its own and shares the same data with the others.
What Retano is showing in Milan
The modules are developed in-house and can be deployed one at a time or together:
- Retano CatMan: category management and assortment optimisation by store cluster;
- Retano Shelfplan: shelf space management and automatic planogram generation based on the actual fixtures in each store;
- Retano VeriShelf AI: shelf checks from a single photo, with computer vision detecting gaps and display errors;
- Retano SCM: demand forecasting and automatic replenishment, including fresh categories, where the aim is to reduce waste;
- Retano CRM & Loyalty: personalised loyalty programmes, targeted offers and churn prevention.
Why the modules need to work together
In retail, every decision affects another one. When the range changes but the planogram follows weeks later, the shelf no longer reflects the decision: delisted products still take up space, new lines find no place, and fast sellers with too little space run out on the shelf while the warehouse is full.
On the platform, each decision feeds the next. When Retano CatMan changes the range for a group of stores, Retano Shelfplan recalculates the planograms for each store’s actual fixtures. Retano VeriShelf AI checks that the shelf was set up as planned. Retano SCM can adjust forecasts and replenishment to the space assigned to each product. Data from Retano CRM & Loyalty on what customers buy, and what they buy together, feeds into range decisions and brings out products that drive baskets without standing out in sales rankings.
The aim is a single process in place of separate hand-offs, with one data set behind every decision: faster and more consistent decisions between head office and stores, better on-shelf availability with less idle stock, and less manual work for category managers, space planners and store staff.
“For years every retail function had its own system: one for assortment, one for planograms, one for orders, one for customers. Each of them worked, but they did not talk to each other,” says Gianni Cassano, Country Manager at Retano. “The direction now is a single ecosystem in which data and decisions pass from one link to the next without stopping. Assortment, shelf, stock and customers are no longer separate worlds. That is the connected store we want to build together with Italian retailers.”
Two sessions on 11 November
10:20, Plenary Stage. “Shelf space as an asset to manage: designed, executed, measured. The Brico io case.” Gianni Cassano and Agostino Russo, Chief Information Officer of Brico io, show how shelf space is planned with data, executed precisely in each store and measured by its effect on sales and margins.
12:35, Sala Blu, GDO Spotlight. “Shelf, stock and engagement data exist but stay disconnected: how to use them to raise availability, sell-out and in-store productivity.” A round table with Gian Luca Carpanesi, Director of Purchasing, Marketing, Merchandising and Logistics at Brico io, Stefano Incerto, Project Manager at Carrelli Distribuzione, and Gianni Cassano, moderated by Susanna Ferrario. The discussion covers how to connect data held in separate systems to make better decisions in stores.