About us

Headquartered in South Manchester, Decision Systems has been a specialist supplier of retail planning applications to UK fashion and general merchandise retailers for over 20 years and is now the only significant independent UK-based supplier of such software and services.

Martin Collins, owner of Decision Systems, founded the company in 1987 and remains Managing Director of the company.  Martin was already an experienced provider of financial planning and decision support systems when he was a Director of EPS Consultants, the most successful UK-based software company of its type in the 1980's.

Martin decided to form Decision Systems to address the specific needs for retail merchandise planning in the fashion industry using the emerging PC-based techniques and technology.  Next was the first retailer to adopt the Buyerplan® WSSI system that he created. The client base grew as users from Next moved on to other retailers, such as George Clothing, Boots and Mothercare, and introduced the system they had found so useful previously. This type of recommendation by satisfied users has remained a continuing feature of the business as time has progressed.

Several members of the development staff at EPS joined him at Decision Systems and have helped develop what has become the Buyerplan suite of retail planning software.  The strong product development team has stayed together over the years and seen the product move through the various implementations that reflect the major developments in the technical and programming environments. The focus has always been to deliver highly pertinent and fully usable business solutions using the appropriate technology.

The customer support team has also been with the company from the early days and are very experienced in providing high support levels to end-user customers, as well as their technical staff.

In 1998 Geoff Bunney joined the company as Principal Consultant to extend the in-depth application consulting and advice available to customers. As an experienced end-user of the Buyerplan software Geoff was also ideally situated to play a leading role in designing new capabilities in the software. Geoff was a founder member of both Next and George Clothing and hence has deep experience of merchandising, which he can call on to advise and train users.

Both Martin and Geoff are now regarded as UK authorities on the current issues and likely developments in retail merchandise planning systems - especially from the perspective of the challenges faced by the average buyer or merchandiser and the software support systems they need to meet those challenges.

Decision Systems has always had a close relationship with George Davies over the years via Next and George Clothing, Per Una at M&S and also at S’porter who are responsible for merchandise at Arsenal and Liverpool football clubs and set for significant expansion. Much of the current Buyerplan functionality was developed with the active feedback from both buyers and merchandisers at Per Una and the system has been acknowledged as contributing to Per Una’s astounding success since the brand’s launch in 2001.

With highly talented and experienced staff, as well as exceptionally low staff turnover, Decision Systems are the ideal merchandise planning software partner for those responsible for buying and merchandising in fashion and general merchandise retailing.