Promotional Planning Suite
Modernized a 40-year-old promotional planning system, replacing manual spreadsheet processes with an ML-powered platform that recommends pricing and promotion strategies for category managers across Kroger stores and digital channels.
company
Kroger
role
Senior Product Manager
product
Promotional Planning Suite
team
Cross-functional (Engineering, Data Science, Category Management)
Overview
Kroger is the largest U.S. supermarket by revenue, operating 2,700+ stores across 35 states under multiple banners and divisions. Promotional planning — deciding which products to promote, at what price, and for how long — is one of the most strategically critical and operationally complex functions in grocery retail. I was the Senior Product Manager leading the modernization of Kroger's promotional planning tools: replacing a system that was nearly four decades old and a patchwork of manual spreadsheets with a unified, ML-powered platform built for category managers and promotion planners.
The Challenge
For close to 40 years, Kroger's promotional planning ran on legacy software supplemented by extensive manual spreadsheet work. These tools couldn't handle the complexity of modern retail — varying performance targets across thousands of stores and multiple divisions, evolving budget constraints, and the simultaneous need to optimize pricing and promotional cadences for a vast product catalog across both physical stores and online channels. Planning was slow, inconsistent across divisions, and dependent on institutional knowledge rather than data. The opportunity was to replace this with a system that embedded intelligence directly into the planning workflow.
Platform Capabilities
A unified planning platform with embedded ML — from budget constraints to channel-level execution.
ML Recommendations
Promo & Pricing
Budget Optimization
Goal-aware
Store Targets
Unit-level
Division Goals
Cross-division
In-Store Planning
Physical channels
Digital Channels
Online coverage
What I Built
01
Legacy System Modernization
Replaced a ~40-year-old promotional planning system and its surrounding spreadsheet workflows with a unified digital platform. Redesigned core planning workflows for category managers and promotion planners — reducing manual effort, improving consistency across divisions, and establishing a reliable system of record for Kroger's promotional calendar.
02
ML-Powered Promo & Pricing Recommendations
Embedded machine learning models that surface promotion and pricing strategy recommendations for individual products. The models factor in budget goals, store-level performance targets, and division-level objectives — enabling planners to make data-driven decisions at scale rather than relying on intuition and institutional knowledge.
03
Multi-Channel Planning Coverage
Extended the platform to support planning across both in-store and online channels within a single workflow. This gave planners a unified view of their promotional strategy and ensured consistency across Kroger's entire retail footprint — physical and digital.