- Powering Retail Execution Management
Retail Solutions is successfully managing a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model to help CP companies gain insights on inventory movement.
- Lora Cecere, AMR Research, '10 Cool Technology Applications for Consumer Products,' May 17, 2007
Availability
Replenishment
Retail Solutions Replenishment utilizes point-of-sale (POS) data and specialized algorithms to generate by-item-by-store replenishment orders based on the true in-store availability, rather than only on retailer on-hand quantity. With Retail Solutions Replenishment, both retailers and consumer product goods (CPG) companies can achieve optimized inventory levels, lower operating costs and increased sales.
Covering both the functionality needed for Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) and Direct Store Delivery (DSD) models, Retail Solutions Replenishment is a significant improvement over traditional ordering solutions. Where most solution providers utilize retail on-hand inventory as a proxy for determining reorder points, Retail Solutions utilizes its proprietary algorithms, also used in its On-Shelf Management solution, to establish a factual picture of store-by-store availability before calculating order levels.
By ensuring the right amount of product is in the right place at the right time, Retail Solutions Replenishment enables retailers and manufacturers to achieve a more productive, profitable collaborative model.
With Retail Solutions Replenishment, manufacturers benefit from gaining a full visibility into on-hand, combined with an increased level of ownership on the ordering process. This allows for a better match between customer demand (sales data, promotion plan…) and replenishment practices, providing many benefits to the retailer and the manufacturer:
- Improve fill rate and reduce out-of-stocks – ultimately resulting in proven increases in sales and improved customer satisfaction for both the retailer and the manufacturer
- Lower inventory levels across the supply chain – increased inventory turns and lower safety stocks, which also results in better usage of logistics assets and significant reduction in inventory carrying costs
- Improve transparency and build more effective relationships – cut down data quality issues, improve order accuracy and the overall productivity of the ordering process
Retail Solutions Replenishment features a comprehensive set of tools and analyses to enable you to operate more informed, more effective and more efficient replenishment practices:
- Complete inventory management for the maintenance of accurate perpetual inventory by item at the warehouse (VMI) or at the store level (DSD)
- Strategic application of operational conditions to your replenishment strategy, such as minimum order quantities, order multiple/reorder point logic and optimal reorder frequency to ensure efficient resource utilization
- Seasonal and promotional forecasting to ensure profitable promotions
- Inventory optimized to consumer demand
- Full electronic communication capabilities (e.g. EDI, FTP, AS2) for shipping information, warehouse and store inventory movement, invoicing, purchase order management and item maintenance
- Dedicated inventory managers to maintain replenishment performance and provide inventory insight and advanced analytics