The Infosys global supply chain management blog enables leaner supply chains through process and IT related interventions. Discuss the latest trends and solutions across the supply chain management landscape.

Main

March 08, 2010

Do you really want the Paper Receipt …?

As a customer I have always been frustrated by the clutter created, and the effort required to manage my store sale receipts. More often than not, Murphy strikes, and I cannot seem to find the very same receipt on which a return/exchange needs to be made. Other than the frustrations that a customer like me has to go through in organizing/retaining store receipts, these receipts are also an environmental and procurement problem.

Continue reading "Do you really want the Paper Receipt …?" »

Posted by Sameer Prashar at 12:47 AM | | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

February 26, 2010

Augmented Reality and Multi Channel Retail- Unifying the Customer Touchpoints

Most retailers have three primary channels: stores, catalog, and online. A catalog offers a great selection of products in a medium that customers are comfortable with and providing service through a contact center allows ample opportunity for cross-sells and up-sells. The online channel has even greater selection plus integration with social networks, user reviews, easy comparison shopping with other retailers and the convenience of shopping at convenience. The traditional brick and mortar stores let the customers handle and play with products, return items in person, carry them home with you that day and talk with a salesperson if they have questions. The advent of Mobile commerce and growth of the convergence phenomena across the digital world through 'augmented reality' and 'ubiquitous connectivity' has led to unique opportunities for retailers to leverage in developing another channel for commerce as well as enhance the capabilities of existing channels.

 

Continue reading "Augmented Reality and Multi Channel Retail- Unifying the Customer Touchpoints" »

Posted by Amarpal Sanghera at 10:08 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 24, 2010

Supply Chain Predictions for 2010 - how far are we from our end-state vision?

Last month, Infosys got a call from Supply Chain Digest magazine, courtesy the editor-in-chief Dan Gilmore to air our views on the key trends for Supply Chain Management in 2010. Supply Chain Guru Predictions for 2010 published earlier this month covered a set of 5 other eminent folks from MIT, Gartner, Descartes and so on, so I was happy for the opportunity to be featured amongst these industry thought leaders.

As primarily a package supply chain enabler, I stuck to my knitting and covered my theme along two lines (a) Improving efficiencies in the back-end supply chain to reduce costs and (b) Enhancing end-customer experience by augmenting the front-end supply chain. People ask me where the relentless pressure to slay every efficiency killer would end up. What next after Multi-channel commerce, end2end procurement, green asset management... whither goes SCM end-state?

Continue reading "Supply Chain Predictions for 2010 - how far are we from our end-state vision?" »

Posted by Gopi Krishnan at 01:00 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

February 23, 2010

The Imperative for Retailers to Assess Multi-Channel Operations Capabilities as a Prelude to Multi-Channel Commerce

The 2009 holiday buying season in the U.S. and indeed worldwide, presented two important learnings for the retail industry.  First, more consumers turned to online channels to perform price and feature comparisons as well as to execute their purchases.  Online channels were reported as being up 4-5% through mid-December of 2009.  One of the most significant takeaways from this year’s National Retail Federation (NRF) conference was that cost and value conscious consumers have discovered that online shopping and integrated merchandising are becoming a far more attractive option, and these same consumers demand more of these experiences.  The ability to research products, place orders online, pick-up or return purchases at the nearest local retail outlet have captured enormous interest, and consumers demand that these experiences occur without a glitch.

Continue reading "The Imperative for Retailers to Assess Multi-Channel Operations Capabilities as a Prelude to Multi-Channel Commerce" »

Posted by Guest at 05:57 AM | | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

February 15, 2010

Retail Customer Order Management Blog Series: Part 2 – The Retail Order

My last blog finished with Joe Shmoe finding out that despite all his research and time spent deciding on which TV to buy, the store is out of stock for that particular model. The retailer is now in the unenviable position of losing the sale despite having invested a lot of resources in advising the customer and facilitating his Find, Decide and Buy decision. 

The ultimate objective of the retailer is to provide an environment and processes which facilitate the customer in buying products they want i.e. convert the need or intent to buy into a sale. Product availability is one of the key drivers for making this happen. However the supply chain mantra of keeping it 'lean and mean' implies that ensuring product availability is always a balancing act where the retailer juggles with the conflicting principles of lowering inventory carrying costs while preventing loss of sales due to unavailability of stock.

Continue reading "Retail Customer Order Management Blog Series: Part 2 – The Retail Order" »

Posted by Guneet Paintal at 03:45 PM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

February 02, 2010

My sale wants to grow up and become an order

I currently consult across multiple clients. They all are retailers, in different segments. At one retailer, we are defining a roadmap for a order management solution. In the course of our discussions, a question keeps getting raised about the sale made in the store: Is that an order?

You walk into my store, you pick something up, want to buy it, take it to the register, pay for it and take it home. In this entire transaction, you interacted with my company. You took something out of my inventory and paid me cash. In retail lexicon, this would be called a sale. However, if you were a business, and sent me a purchase order, and I responded by creating a sales order and then shipped it to you and invoiced you, the sales order is what would be called a order.

So, a customer transaction in store is a sale, and a B2B transaction is obviously an order. What about an e-commerce B2C transaction? Other than the fact that the customer's ship to address, payment information, and bill to address is available with me, how is this different from a sale? Should I encourage my sale to grow up and become an order?

Continue reading "My sale wants to grow up and become an order" »

Posted by Chandradeep Bandyopadhyay at 03:28 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

February 01, 2010

Retail Customer Order Management Blog Series: Part 1 - An Introduction

This blog got triggered by a series of events that I experienced recently. We were asked recently to analyze a 'simple' retail and online integration for enabling the order management and fulfillment process for kiosk orders which were placed and paid for in the store. Lack of existing documentation forced us to go to the store multiple times to place 'test' orders for elaborating the various scenarios. Some of our experiences have been documented in a previous blog by my colleague Sameer.
 
This actual 'cross channel' experience combined with a similar large implementation for an earlier client convinced me that I should spend some time providing an introduction to Retail Customer Order Management and its specific nuances and challenges. My focus is not to describe the traditional order management process typically associated with a single channel i.e. the steps required for managing the lifecycle of an online order or a retail replenishment order but instead highlight the cross channel benefits and challenges of managing a customer order from a retail stores perspective. 

Continue reading "Retail Customer Order Management Blog Series: Part 1 - An Introduction" »

Posted by Guneet Paintal at 05:27 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

January 30, 2010

Multi Channel Order Management Go Live: How early should you plan Cutover/Rollout?

Last month, I was in UK for one of our retail clients to conduct a short workshop to assess the impact on existing system landscape, as they plan to implement Sterling Commerce order management suite to replace legacy order management. Multi channel order management programs typically end up as highly integration intensive solutions.  In such a solution, cut over and the rollout planning tends to become complex.

Continue reading "Multi Channel Order Management Go Live: How early should you plan Cutover/Rollout?" »

Posted by Vinayak Hegde at 07:29 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

January 28, 2010

Multi Channel Commerce & Mobile Apps - Wishlist 2010

Sterling Commerce recently announced mobile applications for their Order Management application. Sterling Mobile Store Channel and Sterling Store Associate Mobile app for iPhone allow customers as well as business employees to search for products, place orders and track shipments through their iPhones. While discussing these new developments with business users at my current client, i tried to scribble down a wish list from a Retail Store manager's perspective. The expectations are beginning to go beyond the traditional find inventory, find store and place order.

Continue reading "Multi Channel Commerce & Mobile Apps - Wishlist 2010" »

Posted by Amarpal Sanghera at 10:42 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

January 27, 2010

Decide where you integrate: MCO does not equal MCC!

It’s the beginning of the year and our campus here at Bangalore is abuzz with client visits, with sometimes the Bangalore campus alone hosting 4-5 client visits in a single day. Budgets are being cast, everyone is looking for the right drop box to put their IT dollars and wait for maximum magic for the amount spent. While I am not involved in a majority of these visits, there's one industry vertical where SCM practice consistently gets invited to present their point of view, viz., Retail. My reasoning for this is that there’s really no other industry where one encounters so many best-of-breed SCM packages strung together by each of these retailers in a collage uniquely their own.

Continue reading "Decide where you integrate: MCO does not equal MCC!" »

Posted by Gopi Krishnan at 02:08 PM | | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

January 17, 2010

2010s - OMSs and WMSs About you, and me, and them, and...

New Year's day 2010 rolled in; and in the midst of all the New Year greetings, a mail from a colleague and friend on how the future will pan out got me thinking about the work we do. And the work that we will do over this coming decade. I got thinking about what companies would look for in an OMS and a WMS. As I tried to come up with a list of what the companies want, I realized that in a way nothing will change. That is, it was never about the companies. It has been and always will be about you, and about me, and them; the consumer, the customer, the end user. The difference is that it will be more focused on each and every individual and less about a customer as a market segment.

Continue reading "2010s - OMSs and WMSs About you, and me, and them, and..." »

Posted by Chandradeep Bandyopadhyay at 04:57 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

January 07, 2010

Order Management Hubs: Reigning in Complexity

In a recent videocast we conducted with one of our customers, the focus was on how they are using Sterling Commerce’s  order management hub software to better serve their retail stores in terms of order efficiency, customer service and inventory availability.  While this is a great success story, I continue to be bemused at how difficult it is for companies to get a firm handle on their inventory and their execution processes.  This, despite having invested millions of dollars in ERP systems and other systems that presumably would have rendered this issue moot.

Continue reading "Order Management Hubs: Reigning in Complexity" »

Posted by Richard Douglass at 09:22 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 31, 2009

Instant Gratification - Walmart Style!

While on the topic of Walmart and Marketplace, I just read two pieces of news which got me excited.

Times UK had published an article a few days ago about Amazon being in secret plans to open High Street Stores in the UK.

Continue reading "Instant Gratification - Walmart Style!" »

Posted by Prasad Acharya at 07:41 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

December 23, 2009

Applying Warehouse Operations in a Store

We all know that stores are not warehouses in the real sense even though some of the operations could be similar, except that the customer does the picking and not the picker! But what if some of these operations are applied at a store to increase its productivity and serve customers better? I was reading Steve Banker's post  on how IKEA uses this concept of having warehousing practices used at the store.   

Continue reading "Applying Warehouse Operations in a Store" »

Posted by Lokmanya Rawat at 10:37 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 21, 2009

The Kiosk conundrum

Recently I placed an ‘Online’ order from one of the Kiosks inside a retail outlet. Used a couple of coupons to get $10 off while making the payment at the POS. The customer service was great and the order was delivered in time. As it happens sometimes with orders placed Online, the actual product was not exactly as I expected it to be, so I called up the call center to return it. To my surprise the service representative returned me $10 more than the actual amount I paid!!! So this is what happened: The order I placed at the Kiosk went through to the ‘Online’ system, but the coupon that I used while making the payment at the POS never did. The Customer Service Representative, who was looking at the order in the ‘Online’ system, never saw the coupon and simply returned me the amount that the Kiosk showed.

And guess what, this is not unique to the store I went to. There are many organizations that embraced the pre-paid Kiosk ordering (order Online at the Kiosk and pay at the POS) model so that they do not lose a sale; but they did not do a very good job integrating the ‘Online’ and Retail channels.

Continue reading "The Kiosk conundrum" »

Posted by Sameer Prashar at 05:06 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 16, 2009

Is the new found focus on Marketplace, the end of the road for core Order Management?

Over the last few months, a couple of my clients asked me if Order Management is passé now that every retailer might start logging onto the Marketplace mantra given Walmart's foray into the Marketplace arena.
 
While I see some dilution in terms of focus on Order Management Systems, a Marketplace does not necessarily replace the need for a core Order Management system. Actually, I see more work in the existing Order Management implementations. Let me elucidate.

Continue reading "Is the new found focus on Marketplace, the end of the road for core Order Management?" »

Posted by Prasad Acharya at 09:52 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

December 13, 2009

Get those Channels Integrated…

While in the checkout line of one of the bigger departmental store chains of US, I overheard one of the customers querying the sales associate on the difference between the price of the same item in the store and on the Store’s website. This particular customer, using a smart phone, had found that the price on the website was 20% lower than that in the store and wanted to pick up the item in the store right away, at the price on the website.

That was not going to happen; the brick-and-mortar business and the online business for this particular store are independent mini organizations of their own. They do not share inventory and their sales channels are different silos in themselves. A reflection on the way the online organizations were set up in the heat of the internet revolution; independent of the brick-and-mortar business.

Continue reading "Get those Channels Integrated…" »

Posted by Sameer Prashar at 11:26 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 07, 2009

Being Unique with MCC: Can Something Buried Under The Hood Be A Differentiator?

Earlier this week, I was in a dinner meeting with the VP of e-commerce at a large general merchandise retailer along with some others from his management team. This was an all-hands meeting of vendor managers whose teams are helping the retailer string together a viable online retail channel. During the course of the dinner, I and another collegue got to spend a surprisingly uninterrupted 20-or-so minutes with the VP (considering the clamour there, it certainly was surprising and may be it helped that none of us were smoking!). Among various things we discussed, one comment he made caught my ear. He felt that in the entire supply chain transformation that's being conceived, differentiation can only be realized via the e-commerce front-end application. Rest of it, order management included, are just supposed to fulfill pre-ordained roles in a predictable fashion.

Continue reading "Being Unique with MCC: Can Something Buried Under The Hood Be A Differentiator?" »

Posted by Gopi Krishnan at 10:02 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

November 05, 2009

Developing a Multichannel Reverse Logistics Solution - 2

In my last post I touched upon the key aspect of developing Return Channel strategy. That is easier said than done and needs extensive data analysis. This brings us to another key step in developing an effective reverse logistics solution: Analyze and Avoid.

Continue reading "Developing a Multichannel Reverse Logistics Solution - 2" »

Posted by Amarpal Sanghera at 03:25 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 04, 2009

Evolving Models in Customer Order Servicing – Supply Chain Implications

Retailers of late are embracing the ATB model to maximize order promising, reduce inventory holding and to provide near-to-accurate delivery dates, thus providing improved serviceability to customers.

So what is ATB all about? How does it transform ones business? How should a business gear up to run in such a model?

Continue reading "Evolving Models in Customer Order Servicing – Supply Chain Implications" »

Posted by Lokmanya Rawat at 05:53 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

October 28, 2009

So is SCM Transformation an Oxymoron or a Holy Grail to aspire to?

Transformation is a much-used (abused?) word these days. So, when I read Bob Ferrari's guest column at our blog site (http://www.infosysblogs.com/supply-chain/2009/10/resolving_the_constant_debate.html), something I keep wondering periodically came to my mind again - Is SCM Tranformation an oxymoron or is it actually a valid proposition? The context the word "transformation" is used currently refers to mega-sized, multi-year, multi-million, global-scale, rip-everything-off & replace programs. Since SCM is inherently an outside-in domain, the typical definitions of transformation may not apply.

Continue reading "So is SCM Transformation an Oxymoron or a Holy Grail to aspire to?" »

Posted by Gopi Krishnan at 05:56 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

October 20, 2009

The Forgotten Channel in Cross-Channel Retailing

How can retailers enhance the personal shopping experience, even as they cut staff in all channels?

NRF President and CEO Tracy Mullin states, “The expectation of another challenging holiday season does not come as news to retailers, who have been experiencing a pullback in consumer spending for over a year.  To compensate, retailers’ focus on the holiday season has been razor-sharp with companies cutting back as much as possible on operating costs in order to pass along aggressive savings and promotions to customers.” (NRF Forecasts One Percent Decline in Holiday Sales --As Losses Stabilize, Retailers Hone In on Aggressive Promotions, October 6, 2009, National Retail Foundation)

Continue reading "The Forgotten Channel in Cross-Channel Retailing" »

Posted by Jim Bengier at 11:48 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

October 06, 2009

Developing a Multichannel Reverse Logistics Solution - 1

I am currently working with a client helping them define and implement an integrated sales and fulfillment multichannel solution. While mapping the current process and trying to define the future state process for Returns, I had that eerie feeling of déjà vu- it was quite similar to what I had experienced at other retailers and in few words- disjointed and neglected. The contrast during the Fulfillment process discussions and Return process discussions was stark. The fulfillment supply chain works like a Ferrari and was the key focus of most discussions on strategy but Returns was the cranky old pickup parked in the backyard that no one wants to know about. To ensure that customer experience does not suffer, client still tries to provide the multichannel returns experience to the customer without having foundational technology and processes in place and as a result takes a hit to their bottom line.

Continue reading "Developing a Multichannel Reverse Logistics Solution - 1" »

Posted by Amarpal Sanghera at 06:32 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

October 04, 2009

Carton Allocation During Warehouse Outbound Process

Getting the right size carton to pack an order would be a daunting task during an outbound process in a warehouse. There maybe various sizes of cartons available, but which size and how many of such cartons would accommodate the entire order would be a challenge.

This could be simplified by applying a carton allocation logic that can be built within the WMS system managing the warehouse in case it does not have such a feature. This logic would need to revolve around the fact that items need to fit in the right size cartons with the minimum space wastage and using the minimum number of cartons. Let’s look at how this logic can be formulated. This logic must be used soon after all items have been picked and ready to be packed.

Continue reading "Carton Allocation During Warehouse Outbound Process" »

Posted by Lokmanya Rawat at 10:51 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

October 03, 2009

Solution definition..or Requirements Refining..or Both?

The key to successful requirements is to be true to the project goals, to define a requirements strategy and to stick to it as I mentioned in my last entry. In a package implementation the trinity of the business owner, the implementation team and the package vendor need to be aligned with the program vision and timelines.

However, quite often project teams treat requirements as etched in stone. The requirement by itself is just a means to an end. In a package implementation, it is not easy to state the requirements in terms of the package being implemented. We were implementing SterlingCommerce MCF(Multi Channel Fulfillment) and SterlingCommerce Call Center application to replace the client's legacy OMS and call center application. The business requirement owners were new to the package. For the first few sessions, we played an attritional game of "This is what the requirement wants, but this is what the package does". It wasn't going anywhere. There was heartburn and conflict.

At this juncture, as a project team, a decision was taken that the implementation team would also explain what the product does and the why behind that. This led to a longer timeline, but better utilization of the time. Slowly this became a game of "If this is what the package does, how does it meet my overarching requirements". And while the solution was being given shape, the requirement owners restated their requirements in terms of what the package does. 

Continue reading "Solution definition..or Requirements Refining..or Both?" »

Posted by Chandradeep Bandyopadhyay at 02:12 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

September 17, 2009

Video:Accurate fulfillment or A Smooth Checkout Experience? Now you don’t really have to choose...

Online shopping has been less impacted from recessionary pressures and has continued showing upward growth. While online shoppers take quick and often impulse decisions, there has been a marked increase in shopping cart abandonment due to uneven user experience. This trend has been largely attributed to a slow and cumbersome checkout processes. In crafting the right shopping experience, retailers are caught between speed and efficiency of check-out process on one end and the need to have accurate inventory picture at the other, with this picture sourced from back-end supply chain applications on a near real-time basis. In this video blog, I share an easy-to-implement approach to front-end inventory visibility by striking a balance between website performance and accurate fulfillment using item/inventory classification principles coupled with inventory synchronization rules. I also talk about a differentiated inventory visibility strategy through which one can do away with the need to maintain inventory positions for 100% of the catalog. The complete paper on this paper was published by Manufacturing & Logistics IT and can be read here


Continue reading "Video:Accurate fulfillment or A Smooth Checkout Experience? Now you don’t really have to choose..." »

Posted by Gopi Krishnan at 10:37 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

September 02, 2009

Outsource your processes, not your customer!

I have been following the ecommerce strategy at Target for quite a few years now. So, the only surprising part of the news when I read that Target plans to part ways with Amazon was the amount of time it took Target to move in that direction.

Continue reading "Outsource your processes, not your customer!" »

Posted by Prasad Acharya at 08:40 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

August 24, 2009

Do you have the right strategy for global ecommerce platform deployment?

The internet penetration generally indicates levels of economic development. As large retailers look at global ecommerce reach and expansion in developing countries, it is a huge challenge to build a multi channel commerce platform solution which can cater to multiple countries. There are multiple approaches to consider before arriving at the right strategy for global platform deployment.

Continue reading "Do you have the right strategy for global ecommerce platform deployment?" »

Posted by Vinayak Hegde at 04:24 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

August 04, 2009

A Multi-Channel Journey - I - Proteins or Carbs

I currently consult at a client who are on the verge of going live with a multi channel solution. Through a series of posts I will walk through the various stages of the program.

The title of this post emanates from some recent attempts of "a friend" to figure out the best dieting strategies to reduce weight. Proteins are primarily the building blocks while Carbs provide energy. Some diets focus on Proteins and some on Carbs and some on multiple combinations of these two. This entry is about the solution design phase were we continuously grappled with the protein-carb question.

Protein is the metaphor for the strategic intent while Carbs relate to the tactical considerations to keep moving. How did we decide?

Continue reading "A Multi-Channel Journey - I - Proteins or Carbs" »

Posted by Chandradeep Bandyopadhyay at 03:50 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

July 21, 2009

Are your customers reaching out to you for repairs?

Scanning my daily dose of RSS feeds I came across a very interesting piece from Farhad Manjoo where he tracks a growing phenomena of "Self Repair" in consumer electronics. He gave the example of a company that provides self repair guides and spare parts for Apple customers who would like to extend the life of their iPod or iPhone and are happy to do some tinkering at home while at risk of going out of warranty. This is a great example of customer demand being fulfilled by an opportunistic service provider in the white space left by the manufacturer/retailer in reverse logistics.

Continue reading "Are your customers reaching out to you for repairs?" »

Posted by Amarpal Sanghera at 08:03 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Consumers’ Demand Retail Cross-Channel Capabilities

The misconception among retailers today is that retail is no longer store driven. Many retailers tell me that 50-75 percent of their business begins online; but, interestingly enough, the end purchase continues to take place at the store.

Continue reading "Consumers’ Demand Retail Cross-Channel Capabilities" »

Posted by Jim Bengier at 04:09 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

July 19, 2009

Mistakes Companies Make While Choosing a WMS

Selecting a WMS package to run your business might be a tricky situation to be in. It can either make or break your business; look out for these common pitfalls that you can avoid in the first place as they can jeopardize your initiative of automating your warehouse.

Continue reading "Mistakes Companies Make While Choosing a WMS" »

Posted by Lokmanya Rawat at 09:50 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

July 17, 2009

Big brands doing online war-dances mean more SCM components to fix

Last week my colleague Karmesh Vaswani, who heads client services group for Retail & CPG vertical in Europe forwarded me a very interesting article from Financial Times titled "E-retailers find big brands hard to touch" from Samantha Pearson (dt 08-Jul-2009, Page 20, part of FT series Dotcom Redefined).  There were a number of interesting observations in there starting with the dominance of the traditional giants like TESCO, Argos and Marks & Spencer in the Top-15, how the predicted dot-com way of buying never really became de-facto with a forecast of dot-com retail sales reaching just 10% by 2013 and also, major challenges faced by the diverse set in the top-15 as they try to ramp-up their sales online. One specific point to note was that Amazon.co.uk rules supreme (with Amazon.com independently at no.4) and would be definitely the one to beat, when it comes to dot-com revenues as well as e-commerce & fulfillment models.

Continue reading "Big brands doing online war-dances mean more SCM components to fix" »

Posted by Gopi Krishnan at 09:42 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

July 06, 2009

The Perfect Order – The Danger of Aggregate Metrics

The term “perfect order” has become a well-worn metric for anyone with a supply chain.  Typically, most people think in terms of the basic measures of “on time, in full, in spec,” which means have the customers gotten what they wanted when they wanted it, in the full amount ordered and with the expected level of quality?  Over time, the metric has expanded to specifically call out subsidiary metrics like Right Product, Right Packaging, Right Documentation, delivered to the Right Location, etc.  And all of these metrics make perfect sense.

Continue reading "The Perfect Order – The Danger of Aggregate Metrics" »

Posted by Richard Douglass at 01:36 PM | | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

July 01, 2009

Life Technologies Ecommerce Transformation speaker session at Sterling Connection 2009

For the Sterling Customer Connection 2009 event, I was asked to co-present the Ecommerce transformation initiative at Life Technologies. As it turned out due to last minute exigencies, Christian Wip, the Director E-Commerce at Life Technologies was unable to make it to the event and I became the sole presenter.
 
The Life Technologies Ecommerce initiative aimed at replacing their ecommerce web based sales channel with a new customer centric and technologically scalable solution based on Sterling MCS.The idea of the presentation was to share key insights, learnings and best practices we put in place to enable this successful transformation.

Continue reading "Life Technologies Ecommerce Transformation speaker session at Sterling Connection 2009" »

Posted by Guneet Paintal at 09:32 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 10, 2009

Road ahead for Sterling MCS & MCF Product Suite - An insight from Sterling Customer Connection 2009

The major theme of the Sterling Connect event for 2009 as expounded in great detail was around connecting and collaborating. The launch of the Sterling BIS suite was an obvious manifestation of that idea. However for those of us working with the Sterling MCS (erstwhile Comergent) and Sterling MCF, I picked up two key ideas which seemed to be of great interest and impact to practitioners and customers working on these applications.

Continue reading "Road ahead for Sterling MCS & MCF Product Suite - An insight from Sterling Customer Connection 2009" »

Posted by Guest at 05:53 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 05, 2009

eCommerce order fulfillment must use consumer patience in sourcing and fulfillment to optimize cost of shipping to the customer

Let's take this example. A customer placing an online order from, say Minneapolis will get his order fulfilled from Chicago distribution center (DC) because for all the customers around central part of the US, Chicago may be the “hub” DC. However, all the order lines may not be available in Chicago DC. As online retailers look at multiple options to successfully fulfill customer orders, transfer of some order lines (items) that are not available in Hub DC may be procured from some other closest DC (alternate DC).

Continue reading "eCommerce order fulfillment must use consumer patience in sourcing and fulfillment to optimize cost of shipping to the customer" »

Posted by Vinayak Hegde at 12:41 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Video - Sticking to your basics in warehouse management for enhanced profitability

Posted by Vikram Shukla at 09:37 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 04, 2009

WMS-The new pain points

Some time back I had written about the key requirements for Multi Tenancy in WMS (here). I spoke about a similar topic at Sterling Commerce Connect (read Gopi's despatches from the event here and here)

The topic was Global WMS deployment and our experiences while doing such implementations. 

In the course of the session we talked about the challenges faced in WMS and we noticed that quite a few were more 'traditional' - pertaining to the standard challenges faced by any software that manages operations. Things like speeding up people's tasks, seamless interleaving of physical movement of inventory and systemic processing; however another interesting facet was the focus on being able to deploy quicker and faster with MORE site specific customizations.  More?

Continue reading "WMS-The new pain points" »

Posted by Chandradeep Bandyopadhyay at 03:30 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

May 19, 2009

Case for Return Lifecycle Management Platform

Many a time Returns Visibility is assumed to be limited to track and trace of the orders and inventory as they flow in the reverse supply chain. True visibility means having actionable insights into the lifecycle of the return order. This includes maintaining and updating information at unique item level throughout product lifecycle(manufacturing to end-of-life stages), tracking the return reasons and end state dispositions and understanding the customer demographics for the returns. 

Continue reading "Case for Return Lifecycle Management Platform" »

Posted by Amarpal Sanghera at 12:24 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

April 06, 2009

Designing optimal customer order allocation by taking into account of inventory fluctuations can be quite complex....

In the recent times, many multi channel retailers are increasingly focusing on designing the systems that help them manage variable supply and demand situations.  Hard tying demands to incoming supplies will make system very rigid. Customer demand management in multi channel commerce requires a well thought out pro active response to handle such fluctuations.

 

Continue reading "Designing optimal customer order allocation by taking into account of inventory fluctuations can be quite complex...." »

Posted by Vinayak Hegde at 02:13 PM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

March 24, 2009

Multi-Tenancy in WMS

A few days back I got the opportunity to talk about the challenges for 3PLs in today's economy on a webcast (available here) with Greg Aimi from AMR.

Greg talked about the latest trends in the space, while I talked about the best in class abilities that a 3PL's WMS should have. During the QnA session at the end, there was a question about the key IT differentiating capabilities for such a WMS. I mentioned that multi tenancy is a hygiene factor and is a given.

A question that cropped up later was what are the best in class multi-tenancy features? 

A laundry list of my must-haves follow:

Continue reading "Multi-Tenancy in WMS" »

Posted by Chandradeep Bandyopadhyay at 02:45 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

March 16, 2009

Warehouses of the future - What it takes to reach there? Part I

I was wondering how would the warehouse of the future look like? Say even 10 to 15 years from now. Well not all of them would have transformed by then, but some of them might have definitely. Maybe, some of them have already had, or are in the process of doing so.

So what is the transformation we are talking about? And how would it affect the way we operate these warehouses? Well, we are looking at how warehousing will be transformed into a highly automated environment. There would be no labour required in the first place, in fact they will be no space for humans to walk (except for service engineers). There will be rails and tracks all around on which automated pick Robots would move to pick and putaway pallets and cases around the warehouse. These robots would move on horizontal and vertical tracks and can reach every location within each zone where they operate. There will be sensors all over the warehouse to guide robots, round the clock.

Continue reading "Warehouses of the future - What it takes to reach there? Part I" »

Posted by Lokmanya Rawat at 12:08 PM | | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

Adopt Network WMS -- Use events to minimize disruptions and control IT expenses

Supply chain execution investments are increasingly becoming network centric to efficiently manage order delivery and fulfillment visibility across multi-player ecosystems. The emerging technologies for supply chain execution are also keeping to this need.
Adopting network centric technologies brings along multiple challenges that delay the return from such investments. The salient benefits from network based execution management most often have to ride on an over-arching integration initiative which spans across enterprises (in the “network”) and factors in their IT and business change cycles.
Network technologies today  involve replacement of running homegrown execution platforms, for example a warehouse management system.

Continue reading "Adopt Network WMS -- Use events to minimize disruptions and control IT expenses" »

Posted by Satadal at 11:44 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

February 20, 2009

How can WMS consolidation make your warehouse profitable?

A ‘hybrid instance strategy’ could help your warehouse consolidation initiatives when confronted with different levels of warehouse maturity. In this blog video, I have tried to articulate the key axes of assessing warehouse maturity (viz., business processes, IT systems and capital expenditure) and how warehouse management systems need to be architected keeping these in mind. The complete paper on this topic written by Girish, Satadal and me is available in the whitepapers section of infosys.com/supply-chain at http://www.infosys.com/supply-chain/white-papers/WMS-consolidation.pdf

Posted by Gopi Krishnan at 04:32 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 16, 2009

Adding a new dimension to customer experience in returns

Recently I was part of design workshops to identify opportunities and define processes for a streamlined and enhanced experience of the customer while returning the merchandise in a multi channel scenario. The goal was to achieve a uniform, flexible return process which allowed the client to implement a “Buy anywhere, Return anywhere” returns policy. The review of current processes had shown gaps in process visibility for managers as well as customer, variations in experience and policies for different channels and the process being labeled as “tardy” by the customers.

Continue reading "Adding a new dimension to customer experience in returns" »

Posted by Amarpal Sanghera at 05:20 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 15, 2009

What a 3PL Warehouse contract needs to include

Well, continuing from my previous blog on Warehouse Costs and Margins, let's now touch upon the components that needs to be included in the contract between the 3PL Warehouse service provider and the Client who will be using the services of the warehouse.

The contract includes, at a broader level, the terms and conditions on usage, rate and billing contract, payment terms, warehouses contracted, billing period, space utilised, the client's customers and warehousing activities agreed upon.

Continue reading "What a 3PL Warehouse contract needs to include" »

Posted by Lokmanya Rawat at 05:02 PM | | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

February 04, 2009

Sell through comparison across stores and DCs

I was recently part of a set of workshops to identify improvements for a certain client's store experience. The key considerations where generic in nature; enhance the customer store experience, enhance the employee store experience with positive impacts on the company's bottomline.

As part of the discussions we talked about sell through based fulfillment optimization for direct to customer orders. The question that cropped up is whether sell through optimization can be applied uniformly across stores, and whether DCs should be considered at par. Can we just apply the classical sell-through formula or do we bias it?

Continue reading "Sell through comparison across stores and DCs" »

Posted by Chandradeep Bandyopadhyay at 05:24 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

January 06, 2009

Capturing Warehouse Costs and Margins - Part II

This is the second part of my blog on warehouse costing.

http://infosysblogs.com/supply-chain/2008/11/capturing_warehouse_costs_and.html 

In my previous blog, we touched upon activity based costing. Now let's look at storage based costing. 

As I had mentioned earlier, just to recap, there are three types of costing which comes under storage, they are Storage Unit of Measure (UOM) based costing, Package UOM based and Fixed rental based costing. These are the three types of costing that can be defined, tracked, captured and billed to the customer.

Continue reading "Capturing Warehouse Costs and Margins - Part II" »

Posted by Lokmanya Rawat at 01:56 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

January 04, 2009

Will there be impact of economic downturn on eCommerce platform investments?

The answer is an obvious yes. In eCommerce or in multi channel retailing the focus is on cost of effective fulfillment options, reducing working capital and inventory.  In the last 6 months there has been no extreme step such as eCommerce program put on hold due to the ongoing crisis. While long term strategy will be intact but eCommerce investment is likely to be spread over longer horizon. There is definitely much more emphasis on prioritizing eCommerce platform technology investments. 

Continue reading "Will there be impact of economic downturn on eCommerce platform investments?" »

Posted by Vinayak Hegde at 05:01 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

December 29, 2008

What is selling in my stores?

As an emerging trend over last year or so, retailers are warming up to the idea of store level collaboration with the suppliers. Supplier collaboration can enable retailers to improve the three most important store level metrics - availability, cycle times, and cost. When the retailers start sharing the POS and inventory data to the vendors in a near real time view and define business processes to support action on the data, that allows the supply chain managers at both ends collaborate to make decisions.

Continue reading "What is selling in my stores?" »

Posted by Amarpal Sanghera at 05:51 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

November 26, 2008

Capturing Warehouse Costs and Margins

This is my third blog which is an extension of my previous one, "Channels to Leverage Warehouse Revenue". In this blog, I will explain what a WMS software needs to scale up to in order to capture revenue related information.

First, it must be able to capture costs for warehousing tasks carried out or space utilised. Having said this, tasks carried out will be treated under activity based costing, wherein each activity carried out within a WMS transaction will have an certain cost associated to it.

Continue reading "Capturing Warehouse Costs and Margins" »

Posted by Lokmanya Rawat at 05:14 PM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

November 13, 2008

Five 'I's' of Supply Chain Visibility

While reading a thought provoking blog on a speech by David Allen, famous author of “Getting Things Done”, I could not help but find a corollary between capabilities, what he calls as five “I’s” , of  personal productivity software and an ideal supply chain visibility solution. A day in life of an executive is a quite interesting corollary for Supply Chain. There are constraints, demanding customers, reluctant suppliers and unforeseen meetings/happenings that continuously disturb the meticulously planned schedules. Executives pay a lot of attention to their personal planning gadgets and hire great assistants who help them maximize their day’s worth. Just goes to explain how much would be the worth of a supply chain visibility solution that allows the supply chain managers similar control over their processes.

Continue reading "Five 'I's' of Supply Chain Visibility" »

Posted by Amarpal Sanghera at 05:14 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

November 10, 2008

I can’t see you but I want to be nice to you.

Brick and mortar retailers have focused on the customer experience; store layouts, customer amenities, sales people, returns policies all contribute to the customer experience. There are retailers for whom the customer experience is an integral part of what they mean to their customers. So, when such retailers start selling through multiple channels, how do they ensure that the customer has a seamless experience across channels? Even more difficult to understand is, if one of the cornerstones of the experience is the “nice” feeling customers get in the stores. Over the phone I could still take orders and leave you with a nice feeling. How do I ensure a nice online experience? As a retailer, I can be fast and efficient. But when I can’t see you (and usually can’t talk to you) how do I be nice to you?

Continue reading "I can’t see you but I want to be nice to you." »

Posted by Chandradeep Bandyopadhyay at 06:32 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

October 03, 2008

How distributed is DOM?

The other day, I had someone requesting me on package comparison in the DOM space on “key” functionalities.  The so called “DOM”  or “distributed order management “ can  be misunderstood, generally because it can be confusing to demarcate the DOM process boundary! Interestingly, even package vendors interpret and draw their own boundaries, often overstate when it comes to DOM package functionality. 
The first and the foremost, people confuse DOM offering as the process that covers the entire functionality from customer (or partner) “Inquiry for the product or services” to “Cash” business process. However, what I have seen in the past, the product leaders in this space always focus on providing functionality that compliments the existing infrastructure that supports customer order lifecycle process.  Anyone implementing DOM will encounter the question - do I really need DOM?

Continue reading "How distributed is DOM?" »

Posted by Vinayak Hegde at 01:31 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

September 30, 2008

Channels to Leverage Warehouse Revenue

This is in continuation to my previous blog on "Considering Warehouse as Profit Center".

http://infosysblogs.com/supply-chain/2008/09/considering_warehouse_as_profi.html#more

Now let's look into how a warehouse can transform itself into this new found 'avtaar'. One such aspect would be to have multiple business units within the same organization utilize the services of a single warehouse. In such a setup, business units store their goods in the warehouse in dedicated zones allotted to them. The warehouse, in turn charges each business unit for storing their goods based on activities carried out and storage space utilization, thereby creating revenue for itself.

Continue reading "Channels to Leverage Warehouse Revenue" »

Posted by Lokmanya Rawat at 04:41 PM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

September 24, 2008

What is your Available to Sell Strategy?

As one of the bloggers (Chandradeep) posted earlier, companies look to optimize their inventory levels (or "Sell Nothing") while maximizing their sales per customer footfall/click through. (http://infosysblogs.com/supply-chain/2008/09/how_to_sell_nothing.html#more)

One key aspect is to define the ‘Available to Sell’ Strategy. In layman's term, ‘Available to Sell’ is what the company can promise for a delivery in a specified time window. This includes the current uncommitted inventory at a fulfillment location and any open purchase orders. This can even be extended to supplier finished inventory, WIP inventory and scheduled plans.

Continue reading "What is your Available to Sell Strategy?" »

Posted by Amarpal Sanghera at 09:44 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

September 22, 2008

Warehouse consolidation: managing effectiveness

Consolidation has been traditionally looked as a mechanism to bring in economies of scale. Of late, organizations that operate across geographies are investing to standardize processes, execution models and technology in the warehouses. The context of warehouse processes and information resident in there, has changed in the supply chain architecture. Warehouse level information now is being "consumed for efficiency and better customer response" correlating to order/demand and inventory position information in more real time. Consolidation programs that embed process, technology and operational standardization therefore can greatly simplify journey towards this "enhanced warehouse awareness" in their supply chain and help differentiate the fulfillment execution.

As an architect, I have been involved with a number of such programs and have seen that warehouses being execution centric, a standardization approach needs to consider factors specific to every warehouse like working policies, use of automation and robotics technologies, handling of specific goods and delivery of value added services apart from warehouse layouts. Given such local dependencies, WMS consolidation initiatives must allow reuse or adoption of local mature practices while conforming to the template of global practice and design.

Continue reading "Warehouse consolidation: managing effectiveness" »

Posted by Satadal at 06:33 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

September 19, 2008

Where is this bit from?

In the good old days shopping trips were simple. I lived in town A, went to a store in town A and bought whatever I needed. Sometimes I would go all the way to big city B. If they didn't have what I wanted in big city B, the people at the store might order it for me.

Today (in these convenient new times) I am in town A, log onto an ISP in city B, that connects to a site hosted in country C; the site belonging to a company headquartered in country D; that fulfills my order from a distribution center that could be anywhere in the world.

So the question is: When tax laws require triangulation between point of order capture, point of sale and final ship to address, how do we figure these out? When nearly everything is electronic, which tax jurisdiction do my bits live in?

Continue reading "Where is this bit from?" »

Posted by Chandradeep Bandyopadhyay at 10:44 PM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

September 01, 2008

How to sell nothing?

Corporations are increasingly focusing on the systems that help them manage their demand, their sales and ensure every connect converts to a sale and every sale is fulfilled. 

As a supply chain consultant I discuss optimal processes and practices with companies. In meetings and solutions we propose lean inventory, order on demand and efficiency of process. As a consumer I go to multiple stores, e-stores looking for what I want, at the best possible cost and with the fastest in hand time.

How do various companies marry the conflicting needs of "right" inventory levels with the real time fulfillment demands of an increasing finicky customer? In a limiting case, how do I keep nothing on stock but still sell everything and get it to customers before they look elsewhere? (Of course, "nothing in stock" is hyperbole for optimal inventory levels)

Continue reading "How to sell nothing?" »

Posted by Chandradeep Bandyopadhyay at 11:23 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Multi Channel Sales - All Green, Cross Channel Experience - Blinking Red !!

With multi channel retail becoming the latest buzz about the retail town, most retailers today allow their customers to interact via multiple channels, offering a combination of stores, call centers, and web sites. Surveys have indicated that customers want to be engaged in a consistent way in all channels, else the retailers risk losing them. Many retailers do claim a "Shop anywhere, Pay anyway and Return anywhere" offering, however due to the disparate infrastructures that typically underlie these individual channels, consumers who cross over the channels as part of their shopping cycle often face an experience that is fragmented, inconsistent, and annoying to the customer.

Continue reading "Multi Channel Sales - All Green, Cross Channel Experience - Blinking Red !!" »

Posted by Amarpal Sanghera at 11:17 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Considering Warehouse as Profit Center

Warehouses have come of age. So have the technologies that run them.
Not so long back, warehouses were treated as cost centres, always taking the back seat when it came to formulating business strategies for revenue generation. But times are changing.

Continue reading "Considering Warehouse as Profit Center" »

Posted by Lokmanya Rawat at 11:04 AM | | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

Robust E-Marketplace Exchanges – A quick check

In this age of matured collaborative supply chains, E-Marketplace exchanges are being fast adapted by increasing number of Supply Chain leaders ranging from Manufacturing to Retail Industries. Also the new advancements in IT like SOA and Saas enables these companies to offer their suppliers, customers, and other ecosystem participants—a safe & secure access to parts of their IT architectures and hence their operational excellence.

On one hand, this business model best suits the asset intensive business – factories, truck fleets, data centers, networks to achieve high utilization rates and therefore their returns on invested capital. On the other hand, it helps the entrepreneurs and companies scale up their business with quick access to these assets at no fixed investment cost and hence achieve a competitive equity. In effect business are getting to run on the variable costs with no/less fixed costs and hence keeping their balance sheets light.

 All is well as long as these leaders can match up their supply with the demands. However what happens when the demand exceeds the supply, will the single supply chain powerhouse be able to promise indefinite/endless supply capacity to its suppliers & eco system. A competitive advantage through scale may be hard to maintain when many players, large and small, have equal access to resources at low marginal costs.

Posted by Sujatha Shanmugam at 10:55 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Subscribe to this blog's feed

Blogger Profiles

Poll


Are you using SAP APO? for supply chain planning?

Recent Posts

Categories

Infosys on Twitter


Blog Roll

Archives