Farah boosts inventory management
Global surfwear giant Quiksilver has slashed its costs and improved supply chain efficiencies following the implementation of an e-sales software solution from business system provider, Intentia.
Installed by the company in June 2004, the e-sales solution has allowed the company's customers to self-govern their stock purchasing needs, opened up around-the-clock ordering capabilities and increased real-time flow of information on product range and availability. It has also enhanced inventory management capabilities, order and distribution processes as well as reduced time and resource wastage across the company.
"We wanted an intuitive online ordering system that would be open anytime of the day and speed up response to core customer queries," says IT manager of Quiksilver Australia Thomas Zulliger.
"Previously, notices of available stock were physically sent out to customers in catalogue lists," says IT manager of Quiksilver Australia Thomas Zulliger.
"But the speed of turnaround meant that by the time the lists reached a customer, it was possible that product availability had changed. Providing any-time online access ensures that customers can personally undertake immediate checks of stock availability, and are able to submit order requests then and there. This gets channeled straight through into our integrated back-end enterprise management system, which automatically allocates the order and triggers a dispatch request to the distribution centre."
The new system has also allowed Quiksilver to reduce its marketing costs.
"It plays a big part in managing product turnover and ensures that we maintain less surplus stock and face less over-or-under supply issues," he says.
"We can also promote new products more effectively and address last minute changes in product direction, such as pattern types and colour availability."
Quiksilver's long-term goal is to encourage approximately 50 per cent of its customer base to take advantage of e-sales.
"[The system] wasn't implemented with the intention of totally replacing the existing sales processes, but to work in tandem with them. For the smaller and medium-sized businesses in particular, e-sales is likely to become a useful medium to operate within, and one that they are very open to adopting. This is probably the segment of our customer base we expect to take advantage of the offering. Others may choose to stay with existing customer services and we are happy for them to do so. It's all about offering choice."
Menswear wholesaler Farah Australia is another company which is reaping the rewards of Intentia's software solution.
Less than two years after the system was installed, Farah has already begun to see returns on its investment - achieving a more comprehensive, real time view of data, improving inventory management efficiencies and enhancing supplier relationships and customer service.
"Previously our fill rates and stock inventory were not running efficently enough," says finance director of Farah Australia Andy Williams ("We were running at untenably low fill rates of around 60 per cent, and carrying perhaps 180 days of stock. A key problem was that our existing system couldn't meet the business's evolving needs and didn't allow us to extract the level of accurate data we needed. Today, the system is much slicker and has helped us increase fill-rate numbers to over 90 per cent. It has also enabled us to halve the level of stock in days to around 90 to 100 days."
Intentia's solution has also helped the company's management team increase efficiencies in areas such as reporting and planning.
"We've reduced the month-end reporting time from five days to two," says Williams.
"Also year-end reports, which previously took us two months to complete, can now be turned around in less than 10 days. We have also been able to do away with many time consuming manual processes and numerous spreadsheets we used to track information and make decisions. Free from time-consuming keying-in tasks, people within the business have now become far more like analysts rather than input clerks."
Though primarily focused on its new Intentia Solutions system, Farah is considering upgrading the system as part of its future growth strategy.
"Web-based solutions will become much more important to the company as time goes on," says Williams.
"Sales are on the move and we have many home-based people. The benefits of an electronic-supplier trading system would be immense. Java technology is a much better enabler of web systems and offers a more solid future-proof IT investment."