Retail News Update

Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI)   VMI is a process where the supplier maintains and replenishes the Inventory of the customer based on demand information sent by the customer. During this process the supplier is required to fulfill to mutually agreed objectives for inventory levels, transaction costs and product price.  

Indian Context: 

Vendor Management Inventory in its row form is commonly practiced at all retail outlets, but in an unorganized manner. It is commonly observed at a busy retail store or a family owned store, where salesman of a particular company walks in and asks for any order. The store-owner places the order for the stock-out items and many a times the salesman is asked to take a look at/round to check for stock-out for products supplied by him at the store-racks. The salesman on his own writes down the order for replenishment and takes the store owners approval and delivers on regular basis. VMI is a backward replenishment model, where instead of the customer managing his inventory and deciding how much to order and when, the supplier gets the Purchase Order from the system and fulfills the demand.

Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) is designed to facilitate the replenishment of goods such that it provides cost saving benefits to both suppliers and retailers and their customers and thereby reduce costs, inventory levels and increase profits. VMI is an important component of distribution chain management, by providing a mechanism to allow the supplier to manage and replenish merchandise at the store or at the warehouse level. Using VMI, it is assumed that retailer supplies the vendor with the information necessary to maintain just enough merchandise to meet customer demand and to do so a mechanism in the system is provided to creates the purchase order from the system for the items reaching the ROL (Re-Order Level) for an order of quantity as per the ABC analysis or equal to ROQ (Re-Order Quantity) and then the PO is automatically mailed to supplier to arrange for the delivery. This can further be extended to the manufacturer to provide him of the demand/data to enable him to plan for production planning & logistic.

The VMI is not gaining the momentum as it should have got due to various reasons.

1.      Firstly, they do not have practice of placing order in writing, many a times they order on phone.

2.      Security and confidentiality of data is their primary concern.

3.      The retailers do not want the system to decide their demand.

4.      PO generation involves their commitment and finance and they generally prefer it to be manual or under their control.

5.      Over the years, they have been maintaining the system in their own traditional way and they do not prefer changing over to other system unless they are assured that new system is going to work exactly the same way taking care of his finance and security and also relieve him from pain of maintaining the manual reordering details.

     

Let’s ask following question to understand the benefits of Supply Chain Management

 1.      Why is managing Inventory Important? 

Efficient Inventory Management is the key factor to decide the success of the company. The Dead Investment in Inventory and out of stock situation both results in to loss of money & opportunity, while maintaining Just-in-time Inventory is very tricky and can be attained only with good inventory management system in place. It is very vital and important for all businesses not only from the profitability point of view but also from the CRM perspective.  Indian customer is maturing and their requirement is changing fast and with the development in the technology they are demanding and asking for more and fast response as available from the competitor, so retailing is really becoming highly competitive business.

 2.      Does it make sense to go for Inventory management software in the era of ERP? 

There are times when the one needs to take a call on whether to depend on the available legacy system to take care of Inventory management. ERP system would definitely give you better control on your inventory and forecasting with lot of MIS for decision making but if it is available only at the management level and not available with the store, warehouse & logistic team then it may warrant the need for inventory management software. It is being observed that ERP system in place at the companies are designed keeping in mind the business process in place at that time, but over a period the business process goes through several changes and ERP systems generally do not allow to accept the changes, take simple example of bar-coding, which most of the ERP systems do not have provision for.

 3.      What are the problems faced by manufacturers while managing Inventory? 

The major problem faced by Manufacturer is not knowing the demand of their product in the market and the data to keep the level of stock to meet the current and future demand and hence not able to plan for production. The major issue is in implementing the demand chain solution across the different platforms and among various channel partners to integrate information and get live secondary data to act and respond to the demand and supply. Also the movement of goods from one warehouse to another and maintaining of delivery dispatch details and generation of Barcodes in real-time to track complains with respect to the batch in which the product was manufactured. Many of the above issues are managed manually, resulting in poor response time and loss.

 4.      How do these solutions help them? 

The Inventory Management solution can help to a greater extent if it offers the following:

 ·        Just in Time Inventory:  Keep the stock only for the present and near future demand, without piling of stock and dead investment in the stock.·        Avoid Stock-Out: By placing the order before the stock-out is reached.·        Increase in sales: Due to less stock out situations, customers will find the right product at right time. Customers will come to the store again and again, there-by reflecting an increase in sales.·        Free Fund Flow: Utilize the fund in better Ambience, CRM which otherwise was blocked in stocks due to poor inventory management. 

At Quicksoft, we have various solutions and suit of products to cater to diverse requirements of different retail verticals. Different versions of ArtRM – The Art of Retail Management, Point of Sale solution is available for Supermarket, Departmental Store, Optical Store, Electronic Store, Jewellery Store, Petrol-pumps, Mobile Phone Shops, Pharmacy/Medical Stores, Restaurants, Garment Store, and Community Retail Outlets for Company Employees and Members for Cash-Less Shopping.

 ArtRM for Self Inventory management  

Quicksoft specializes in Point of Sale solution for different retail verticals, Chain store management for remote Inventory Management to take care of the following issues.

1.      Integrated point-of-sale and in-store functions to take care of Retail Management System Store Operations

2.      Module to create new items, set pricing and discounts, generate purchase orders, stock receipt and stock transfer and stock conversion, Invoicing & Accounting.

3.      Ability to see and control inventory with built-in barcode generation modules and manage Inventory across multiple warehouses using the system generated barcodes or manufacturer’s (EAN) barcode.

4.      A pre-packaged solution that offers low licensing costs and rapid investment returns

5.      Highly customizable features for individual needs

6.      Built-in security system to restrict employee access to sensitive information

7.      Detailed sales data for data warehousing  and business intelligence analyses

8.      Ability to view inventory levels at all the stores in the enterprise

9.      Support for Data Synchronization from different locations.

The required software components that enable you to successfully manage your chain store operations are:

·        Client POS Software with store business processes & operations.

·        facility to Synchronization Data to Remote Server for further MIS.

·        Web-based Interface for Remote Inventory Management & MIS.

  ArtRM for Inventory Managed by Vendor (VMI) 

Quicksoft ArtRM – The Art of Retail Management, Point of Sale solution for Retail Outlets has come out with different solution for diverse needs of the Retailers. The VMI enabled version of ArtRM software automatically generates PO to designated vendor on reaching the re-order level and shoots out the mail to the vendor, vendor in turn can accept the PO and send the approval and delivery/dispatch details.

 For a complete list of features and more information, visit the website at www.quicksoftservices.com

  What are the things a Retailer must look for in an Inventory System? 

The Inventory system should be looked at from the point of overall goal of the organization and not from the particular department or warehouses need/requirement. If you are already using some system, which does not give you desired inventory management then first you need to talk and discuss with the software company who has already given you some solution, because going for another solution and using multiple software to take care of inter related issues is advisable to be available in the single system to enjoy the benefit of data integration and generation of MIS from different modules. One needs to be clear in terms of the requirement and if possible should first get proper requirement analysis to be done. If the separate solution is desired then it should be possible to import/export data from the system with following modules.

You must take due care to prepare the check-list to meet your requirement and not depend on someone’s personal judgment. Remember the wrong selection of the software amounts to:

·        Loss of Management time & Opportunity and Loss of sale

·        Software Cost

·        Physical & Hidden training cost and Re-training.

·        Poor stock management and mis-match in physical stock-taking and stock reported by the software.

 VMI a Missing Link in ERP/CRM/SCM  

The key to success for any business is the customer’s point of view. Be it availability of the new products is concerned or faster replenishment, offering of new schemes or mode of payment, personalization, comfort, convenience, ambience or the quality of the product, the improved CRM at every stage of business will definitely give edge over others.  The use of scientific methods and better Supply Chain Management and Demand Chain system with sound logistic system has lead to Success for Amazon, Wal-Mart and various others. Manufacturers can play a major role in introducing and convincing their channel partners to implement VMI and CRM systems to succeed.

 Return on Investment  

Rather than the Cost, the commitment to implement the system is what is required. Initial Cost Involved may be high and ROI may look far fetched, but it should be looked at from the wider perspective as it brings in lot of system and discipline within the organization which will result in addition of the value paid precious clients which will give returns many fold then the Arithmetic’s of ROI.

 Recommended System Requirements:Pentium PC with 256MB Ram 1GB Disk Space (additional required for OS caching during processing.)Windows 98, NT, XP, 2kX 

About Quicksoft Services :Founded in 1988 in India, Bombay, Quicksoft Services is a provider ofWindows and web-based software products and digitizing, conversion &BPO services. For more information on Quicksoft Products, call at (91)22-67551855 or write to quicksoft.services@gmail.com or visit us at www.quicksoftservices.com.

 CONTACT INFORMATION 

 

Hitesh Trivedi

QUICKSOFT SERVICES

Visit Our Site: http://www.quicksoftservices.com

+91-22-67551855

Email : info@quicksoftservices.com