1. Data2Act delivers an outstanding control mechanism for
procurement organisation and provides operational sup-
port for daily tasks. This gives the people within the or-
ganisation influence, control and responsibility with re-
gard to the process and results in greater employee and
customer satisfaction as well as savings in time.
The problem
Challenges in the retail market are increasing. Consum-
ers are more mature and independent, and they're hold-
ing back because of the financial crisis. They're better
informed and can choose between online and offline
shopping. The number of product innovations is also in-
creasing and the course of a product's lifecycle is more
capricious and unpredictable. This all makes the buyer’s
job increasingly complex. A retailer with a broad and deep
range of products, sold at more than 100 outlets through-
out the Netherlands, asks Data2Act to examine its pur-
chasing and inventory management process, and to ana-
lyse where there is potential for improvement.
The solution
1. No clear view of stock positions in the shops, leading to
unnecessarily large stocks in the central warehouse
2. Ordering is done twice a week, so that responses to
'urgent' problems come too late, leading to 'out of stocks'
of both slow and fast-moving products
3. Many manual and time-consuming tasks involved in
keeping the product selection up to date and in initiating
and completing the return process. As a result, non-sell-
ing items stay in the shops too long and items remain in
the warehouse for a long time before being returned to
the supplier.
Following its investigation, Data2Act, together with the
client, worked out a series of checks for monitoring the
three problem areas on a daily basis. Data2Act reads and
connects on a daily basis all operational data from the
various systems, such as the POS system and the ERP
system. Checks are then created that monitor the pro-
blem areas daily. The result is that purchasing managers
are assigned daily actions covering which items need to
be withdrawn because they're no longer selling, which
items have been withdrawn but have not yet been re-
turned to the supplier, and whether the item’s status has
been correctly processed in all systems. They are also as-
signed actions as soon as the stock levels of the items are
considered too high in view of the rate of stock turnover.
In this way they can be proactive in dealing with these
items. In addition, the purchasing managers are informed
daily about the items they haven't yet received from the
supplier or that they've only received in part. If necessary,
they can take action in these matters.
This daily monitoring of the crucial procurement and in-
ventory processes gives purchasing managers more influ-
ence, control and responsibility with regard to the opera-
tional processes.
The result
Through daily monitoring of operational processes,
Data2Act has achieved the following results in the
purchasing sector:
* Reduction of stocks by 20%
* 1.5% rise in turnover
* 20% reduction in working capital
* 4% improvement in productivity
* Time gains, influence and control over operational
processes
For more information
Guy Gimbrere MBA
Sales Consultant Data2Act
+31 (0)6 - 24754389
More efficient purchasing and inventory management
www.data2act.com