Press Release: Competitive Insights listed as a Representative Vendor in Gartner’s 2017 Market Guide for Supply Chain Cost-to-Serve Analytics Technology




Competitive Insights listed as a
Representative Vendor in Gartner’s 2017 Market Guide
for Supply Chain Cost-to-Serve Analytics Technology

Atlanta, Georgia USA (June 22, 2017)--Competitive Insights, LLC announces it has been cited in Gartner’s Market Guide for Supply Chain Cost-to-Serve Analytics Technology as a Representative Vendor for the second year in a row. Competitive Insights believes in realizing the true value from transactional data. On the announcement by Gartner, Jim Hardy, former Senior Vice President at Under Armour, shared “I have deployed Competitive Insights’ solutions at two Fortune 500 companies. In both cases the ongoing insights on revenue, profit and cost improvement opportunities provided a significant and recurring ROI. I searched to see what the market offered and CI's solutions are absolutely unique.”

According to Gartner, “This research provides an overview of the supply chain cost-to-serve analytics market. Supply chain leaders responsible for strategy can use this research to understand the definition, trajectory and representative players in the market.” Competitive Insights enables companies to maximize the value from their data by applying proficient expertise, proven methodologies and efficient solutions focused on specific customer defined visibility needs.

Competitive Insights solutions are dedicated to delivering repeatable, intentional solutions that focus on activity, cost-to-serve, and/or profit visibility for every product sold to every customer through every channel. Each solution supports repeatable data governance, strategic planning and operational improvements using performance visibility for smarter growth.

Competitive Insight’s CEO Richard Sharpe stated “we value Gartner’s globally recognized research and are honored to have received this designation from Gartner two years in a row. It is a tribute to all of the people at Competitive Insights who have worked so hard to deliver tailored and meaningful solutions to all of our Customers.”

Gartner, Market Guide for Supply Chain Cost-to-Serve Analytics Technology, Stan Aronow, 22 June 2017
https://www.gartner.com/doc/3746439?ref=AnalystProfile&srcId=1-4554397745

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About Competitive Insights, LLC

Competitive Insights, headquartered in Atlanta, was founded in 1998. The firm provides both supply chain Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and professional analytical services to enterprise customers including some of the nation’s most recognizable brands. CI’s proprietary mix of software and services collects and processes customers’ transactional data from multiple sources to support cross-functional, fact-based decisions that support the reduction of operating costs, maximizing profits, and mitigating operating risks.

For more information, contact:

Tami Kitajima

Competitive Insights

[email protected]

+1 770.922.4400, Ext. 306

Where Are You Really In Taming The Big Data and Analytics Monster?

Richard Sharpe Analytics & Big Data

 

Blog032_survey

There are often two answers that I hear when talking to companies about where they are in mastering growing volumes of supply chain data and gaining sustainable value using various forms of business user analytics.

The first response is the one publically offered – “We have made substantial investments in technology and expertise and are well on our way in harnessing real value from our data.”

The second “real” answer, once the door has been shut and confidentiallty agreements have been signed, is one of frustration and disappointment.  “Our progress has been extremely slow.  Yes, we are doing the traditional project exercises like various forms of modeling.  However, it is still difficult to get to the value-added information directly into the hands of the decision makers quickly and consistently for ongoing strategic and tactical needs. Even if they do get this information, there is often an underlying doubt about the quality of the data used in generating the required information.”

Companies need to have a measure of how they stack up against other organizations in their journey to master big data and analytics. To address this need, a survey has been created by a team from Arizona State UniversityColorado State UniversityCompetitive InsightsCSCMP’s Supply Chain Quarterly and the lharrington group LLC.  The purpose of the survey is to capture meaningful  answers regarding the progress that companies are making in mastering data and the application of meaningful business analytics. The result will be used to create a Supply Chain Industry Baseline that reflects meaningful responses from a multitude of companies, different industry segments and regions of the world.

This survey will be issued on an annual basis to serve as a means to track the progress that companies are making year over year. The comparisons will show where and how companies have been successful. Finally, it will be a resource to understand the actual challenges and frustrations being experienced by companies in their pursuit to master their data and meaningful business analytics. Therefore, the survey findings will be a resource for companies to determine how their efforts measure up to other companies and to serve as input for internal discussion on big data and analytical priorities.

A preview of this year’s findings will be issued, prior to general release, to all of those that respond to the survey. Highlights of the findings will be presented and discussed at the annual Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) Conference in September. More detailed results as well as other relevant research will also be published in the Supply Chain Quarterly and DC Velocity.

Over the next following weeks, recipients of Supply Chain Quarterly, DC Velocity and Competitive Insights‘ monthly newsletter will be receiving this electronic survey that has been carefully designed to create this industry Baseline.  Responses will only be used to create the Baseline and the associated correlations and findings.  No individual response will be published or referenced in the results or used for any company solicitation.

The more companies that respond and the more honest their responses, the stronger the results will be for EVERYONE in the Supply Chain Industry. Please take the survey HERE or at colostate.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bO98R0OrXZTnxYN

All the best,

Richard

Richard Sharpe

Richard Sharpe is CEO of Competitive Insights, LLC (CI), a founding officer of the American Logistics Aid Network(ALAN) and designated by DC Velocityas a Rainmaker in the industry. For the last 25 years, Richard has been passionate about driving business value through the adoption of process and technology innovations. His current focus is to support CI’s mission to enable companies to gain maximum value through specific, precise and actionable insights across the organization for smarter growth. CI delivers Enterprise Profit Insights (EPI) solutions that enable cross-functional users to increase and protect profitability. Prior to his current role, Richard was President of CAPS Logistics, the forerunner of supply chain optimization. Richard is a frequent speaker at national conferences and leading academic institutions. His current focus is to challenge executives to improve their company’s competitive position by turning enterprise wide data from a liability to an asset through the use of applied business analytics.

Press Release: Big Data Analytics in Supply Chain Survey












Big Data Analytics in Supply Chain
Taming the big data “monster”—a new path to growth

Technology is enabling supply chain organizations to gather enormous amounts of information from an expanding variety of sources. But few companies are actually deriving sustainable value from the supply chain data they are accumulating. Instead, they are struggling with issues such as how to ensure data quality, how to analyze data, and how to make practical use of what they learn from it.

CSCMP’s Supply Chain Quarterly, Arizona State University, Colorado State University, Competitive Insights LLC, and lharrington group LLC are conducting an annual survey on the current state of supply chain Big Data Analytics. The survey will also allow us to track, in the aggregate, companies’ progress in using Big Data Analytics in supply chain management.

The survey is anonymous. The findings will be presented at the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) 2017 annual conference in September. Respondents who choose to provide contact information (which will remain confidential) will receive an early readout of the results prior to the conference.

Click here to participate in the survey

If you have trouble with the link above, please copy and paste the following URL into your web browser: colostate.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bO98R0OrXZTnxYN

Our ability to provide supply chain professionals with meaningful data on this increasingly important topic depends on your participation. We thank you for your contribution, and we look forward to sharing the results with you later this year.

About Competitive Insights, LLC

Competitive Insights, headquartered in Atlanta, was founded in 1998. The firm provides both supply chain Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and professional analytical services to enterprise customers including some of the nation’s most recognizable brands. CI’s proprietary mix of software and services collects and processes customers’ transactional data from multiple sources to support cross-functional, fact-based decisions that support the reduction of operating costs, maximizing profits, and mitigating operating risks.

For more information, contact:

Tami Kitajima

Competitive Insights

[email protected]

+1 770.922.4400, Ext. 306

The Ultimate Value from Supply Chain Visibility

Richard Sharpe Analytics & Big Data

 

Blog031_SupplyChain2

Ask any supply chain executive if they would like to have better, more insightful, supply chain visibility and I can guarantee the answer will be YES.  Visibility initiatives can be focused on any aspect of the supply chain from supplier compliance to customer demand sensing.  Many companies are investing in “end to end” supply chain visibility capabilities using Control Tower applications to monitor and control specific operational movements and activities.  Clearly, these investments can yield huge benefits in increasing efficiencies, reducing costs, mitigating risks and ultimately ensuring the ability to fulfill customer orders.

However, there is another form of visibility that can add “disruptive” competitive advantage.  This visibility is associated with the performance of every supply chain asset in contributing to the generation of profit. Naturally, the goal of any visibility investment is to ultimately support improvements measured on a P&L statement. But how many companies do not recognize that there are deeper layers of visibility that can provide far more detailed insights with regard to profit performance contributions?

Let me give you an example.  A specific company has 110,000 customer delivery locations selling through wholesalers, distributors and directly to the customer.  Historically, the company has managed customer product offerings using standard cost and revenue calculations.  However, they found it difficult to get to actionable insights that could improve on the “one size fits all” order fulfillment strategy by channel.  The company undertook an initiative to gain accurate profit performance information for every product sold to every customer.  The end result, just under 3,000 customer locations provided over 80% of their operating profit.  Empowered with this type of clear, strategic and actionable visibility, the executives immediately pursued answers regarding the root cause for such a dramatic performance variance.  Once the drivers for poor profit performance were understood, smart segmentation strategies were developed and implemented to significantly improve margin contributions.

Bottom line, supply chain operating visibility is a game changer. More insightful, actionable and timely information on supplier performance, movements of containers, multiple postions of inventory, etc. allow for a more proactive management of all supply chain operations. However, operating visibility can drive competitive and “disruptive” improvements in profit at a level that creates actionable insights answering the profit performance questions of “how, what, when, where and why”.

I would love to hear your comments.

All the best,

Richard

Richard Sharpe

Richard Sharpe is CEO of Competitive Insights, LLC (CI), a founding officer of the American Logistics Aid Network(ALAN) and designated by DC Velocityas a Rainmaker in the industry. For the last 25 years, Richard has been passionate about driving business value through the adoption of process and technology innovations. His current focus is to support CI’s mission to enable companies to gain maximum value through specific, precise and actionable insights across the organization for smarter growth. CI delivers Enterprise Profit Insights (EPI) solutions that enable cross-functional users to increase and protect profitability. Prior to his current role, Richard was President of CAPS Logistics, the forerunner of supply chain optimization. Richard is a frequent speaker at national conferences and leading academic institutions. His current focus is to challenge executives to improve their company’s competitive position by turning enterprise wide data from a liability to an asset through the use of applied business analytics.

Hanjin: Why are today’s supply chains more at risk? Part 2

Richard Sharpe Analytics & Big Data

 

My last posting focused on the potential use of analytics and big data to protect an enterprise’s ability to generate profits and offered the following definition for Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM);

the development of strategies to minimize or eliminate the financial impact of supply chain disruptions through the identification and prioritization of possible disruptors at all points in the supply chain, from sources of raw materials to the final delivery to customers”.

Blog030_SupplyChainDisruption

In this posting we will address the following questions:

  • Why are today’s global supply chains more susceptible to significant disruptions?

The success of adopting Lean practices. Yes, the widespread adoption of Lean has provided for reduction of waste, increases in efficiencies and lower operating costs.  However, it has also eliminated the access to alternative choices, if the primary resource of an operation is no longer available.

Expansion into new operating regions while also shifting production to lower cost operating areas. Today’s supply chains simply have more moving parts that go beyond the direct span of control of one company; more moving  parts, more risk.

The volatility of operating in today’s world. Political uncertainties, currency fluctuations, shifts in market demands and social unrest are further factors that can throw a curve ball to any global supply chain operation.  Think about how the Arab Spring impacted business throughout the region.

  • Who needs to be involved in creating, implementing and maintaining an effective SCRM program and What can you do that goes beyond Crisis Management?

Supply Chain Risk Mitigation strategies should always be based on three basic principals; redundancycontingency and policy mitigation strategies. Each can involve elements of adding costs, making specific operational changes or simply changing an operational policy.

To be effective, the identification, selection, justification and internal socialization of the mitigation strategy must be cross-functional and this often means involving Sales, Marketing, Finance, Supply Chain as well as other appropriate functions.  If these types of decisions are made in a vacuum (siloed) they will never survive the organization resistance to change or the next set of budget cuts.

  • How do you determine that your SCRM strategies are working?

Your company must have a consensus based “measuring stick” that is cross-functionally agreed upon.  An agreed upon set of measurements that are aligned with the organization’s priorities and that allows for an organizational consensus on how to identify, measure and prioritize significant, potentially disruptive risks.

There is no better way to do this than to understand the specific financial impact of each potential disruption, e.g. how much it would hurt the bottom line.  Once created, the same set of measurements should be used to monitor the mitigation impact of each implemented strategy.

I would love to hear your comments.

All the best,
Richard

Richard Sharpe

Richard Sharpe is CEO of Competitive Insights, LLC (CI), a founding officer of the American Logistics Aid Network(ALAN) and designated by DC Velocityas a Rainmaker in the industry. For the last 25 years, Richard has been passionate about driving business value through the adoption of process and technology innovations. His current focus is to support CI’s mission to enable companies to gain maximum value through specific, precise and actionable insights across the organization for smarter growth. CI delivers Enterprise Profit Insights (EPI) solutions that enable cross-functional users to increase and protect profitability. Prior to his current role, Richard was President of CAPS Logistics, the forerunner of supply chain optimization. Richard is a frequent speaker at national conferences and leading academic institutions. His current focus is to challenge executives to improve their company’s competitive position by turning enterprise wide data from a liability to an asset through the use of applied business analytics.

Case Study: Auto Parts Distributor & Retailer





















industry

auto parts distributor and retailer

($2 billion revenue)

business challenge

to gain financial visibility into SKU performance from multiple operating and financial systems and identify opportunities to improve profitability






solution

product & channel analysis

descriptive • diagnostic analytics
supply chain • finance

data governance • organize and tie together data by each supply chain component • analyze profitability of each SKU

  • explored

    SKU specific visibility into financial performance for every Channel Customer & Stores (costs & profits)



  • addressed

    opportunities to improve operational data that would positively impact ongoing management



  • identified

    specific product segmentation insights regarding profitability



  • utilized

    inventory diagnostics to identify working capital reduction opportunities




The results illustrated in this case study are specific to the particular situations, business models, data input, and computing environments described herein. Each Competitive Insights (CI) customer’s experience is unique based on business and technical variables and all statements must be considered non-typical. Actual savings, results, and performance characteristics will vary depending on individual customer configurations and conditions. CI does not guarantee or represent that every customer will achieve similar results.

Hanjin: A Wake-Up Call

Richard Sharpe Analytics & Big Data

 

Ship_Container_cropped

Is this affecting your operation?

From the Wall Street Journal Logistics Report, September 8, 2016:

“The owners of some $14 billion in cargo stranded on Hanjin Shipping Co. vessels are considering desperate measures to recover their goods. Courts in Korea and the U.S. have said the company’s ships can enter ports without being seized by creditors, but it’s unclear who will pay to unload them if they dock, the WSJ’s Erica E. Phillips and Costas Paris write. Some shippers aren’t waiting to find out. Samsung Electronics, which has $38 million in cargo on Hanjin ships, is considering chartering 16 cargo planes. Others say they don’t even know where their freight is, let alone have a plan to rescue it. Trans-Pacific shipping rates have spiked as much as 50% amid the uncertainty, with brokers describing the situation as ‘a total mess.’ ”

Too busy to read this blog trying to find a fix? Then this blog is for you!

The majority of my postings have centered on the use of analytics on big data to directly increase profitable performance.  However, the smart use of analytics goes beyond the need to find opportunities to generate more profit. It should also include the capability to support the mitigation of significant supply chain disruptions. The ROI for using analytics on big data to enhance profits is more than enough to justify the investment. The ROI is multiple times larger when you leverage the same data with additional analytics to protect profits. Therefore, the next four postings will now focus on the protection of an enterprise’s ability to generate profits.

Today’s supply chain executives are constantly dealing with disruptions to their supply chain operations. According to British Standards Institute, in 2015 global supply chains incurred a combined $56 billion in extra costs due to crime, extreme weather, terrorist threats and the migrant crisis that swept across Europe. One of the most insightful research efforts was done by Vinod Singhal from Georgia Institute of Technology and Kevin Hendricks from University of Western Ontario with the following results:

Blog028_research

As depicted in the top section of the visual below, most disruptions are managed through a Supply Chain Crisis Management process.  This often involves activating a “Situation War Room”, gathering the right people and beginning to process information about the situation in order to determine how to get the operation back up and running.  This is a reactionary approach to handle supply chain disruptions. This approach uses valuable time in putting a game plan together while being unable to meet specific customer orders.

Blog028_diagram

Using the insights gained from supply chain analytics, the right approach is to focus on Supply Chain RiskMitigation activities that minimize the financial impact of a disruption before it actually occurs. Mission Impossible you say? Not so. The use of analytics to increase the profitable performance of an operation can also be used to create another set of operational lenses. Lenses that offer insights that empower the organization to mitigate the financial impact of prioritized, potential disruptions.

In addition to being a founding member of the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN)(www.alanaid.org), Competitive Insights has been studying Supply Chain Risk Management best practices for 11 years. During that time, we have participated in creating the first Industry Standard of the subject, ASIS’s Supply Chain Risk Management: A Compilation of Best Practices, published numerous industry articles as well as offered executive education in both conference and university settings.

Therefore, I offer the following definition for Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM); the development of strategies to minimize or eliminate the financial impact of supply chain disruptions through the identification and prioritization of possible disruptors at all points in the supply chain, from sources of raw materials to the final delivery to customers”.

The continuation of this blog series will address the following SCRM points:

  • Why are today’s global supply chains more susceptible to significant disruptions?
  • Who needs to be involved in creating, implementing and maintaining an effective SCRM program?
  • What can you do that goes beyond Crisis Management activities?
  • How do you determine that your SCRM strategies are working?

Remember, the amount you gain far exceeds the cost of change.

I would love to hear your comments.

All the best,

Richard

Richard Sharpe

Richard Sharpe is CEO of Competitive Insights, LLC (CI), a founding officer of the American Logistics Aid Network(ALAN) and designated by DC Velocityas a Rainmaker in the industry. For the last 25 years, Richard has been passionate about driving business value through the adoption of process and technology innovations. His current focus is to support CI’s mission to enable companies to gain maximum value through specific, precise and actionable insights across the organization for smarter growth. CI delivers Enterprise Profit Insights (EPI) solutions that enable cross-functional users to increase and protect profitability. Prior to his current role, Richard was President of CAPS Logistics, the forerunner of supply chain optimization. Richard is a frequent speaker at national conferences and leading academic institutions. His current focus is to challenge executives to improve their company’s competitive position by turning enterprise wide data from a liability to an asset through the use of applied business analytics.

Supply Chain Digitization – A Reality Check

Richard Sharpe Analytics & Big Data

 

InternetOfThings

Today, I am going to switch gears to focus on the hot industry topic “The Digitization of the Supply Chain”.  This subject is getting a lot of attention in the media especially as it relates to the Internet of Things (IoT).  According to Gartner, by 2020 there will be 21 trillion devices streaming information empowered by the IoT.  Information on everything from the current performance of a part within a machine to the current location of my dog.

I get the industry buzz about the digitization of the supply chain.  But I have to ask myself the question; “Other than specific performance/event notifications, will companies really gain the true business value that is possible from this exponential growth in data?

Today, corporate enterprises have no shortage of data.  Data from their ERP, supply chain, finance and sales related systems, just to name a few.  Data that is often siloed and often hoarded by functional organizations.  Even with the ongoing investments that companies have made to access, visualize and manipulate their data, I often hear the statement “we still cannot get the insights we need from the information in our systems.  We aren’t realizing the return on investment we had hoped for and expected”.

In June of this year I ran the Analytics and Big Data Track for the Chief Supply Chain Officer Forum hosted by EyeForTransport.  It was a great day and a half spanning subjects from Data Governance, supporting enhanced S&OP processes and strategic initiatives all through the proper use of analytics and data.  The consensus from the discussions was clear.  To get real value from data you must have VACA:

  • Having processes in place to ensure the VALIDATION and quality of the data
  • Being able to have timely ACCESS to the data
  • Gaining CONCENSUS that the right data that is being used to solve a problem
  • Applying the appropriate ANALYTICS on the data to drive actionable insights that improve the performance of the business

Sounds pretty obvious, right?

However, if we are being honest, how many companies can say they have mastered VACA for the enterprise data they have today?  If not, then how is adding additional finite pieces of data that comes with the digitization of their supply chain going to help?

I think a reality check is required.  Clearly, nothing is going to slow down the exponential growth of data and the digitization of supply chains.  There will be a continuation of great success stories such as the ability to catch the failure of a critical component of a machine before it actually fails.  However, to gain maximum value, companies need to prioritize and act on their VACA capabilities.

The smart place to begin is with the data that already exists within the enterprise.  The smart money is to extract the value from this information before starting to add significant volumes of IoT data.

Without effectively addressing VACA requirements, the digitization of the supply chain will increase the data related headaches that most companies are wrestling with today.  With VACA proven and in place, the lessons and experience gained can then be applied to the new data that will come from future supply chain digitization investments.

I would love to hear your thoughts.

P.S. – get this right and you can take a VACAtion!

All the best,

Richard

Richard Sharpe

Richard Sharpe is CEO of Competitive Insights, LLC (CI), a founding officer of the American Logistics Aid Network(ALAN) and designated by DC Velocityas a Rainmaker in the industry. For the last 25 years, Richard has been passionate about driving business value through the adoption of process and technology innovations. His current focus is to support CI’s mission to enable companies to gain maximum value through specific, precise and actionable insights across the organization for smarter growth. CI delivers Enterprise Profit Insights (EPI) solutions that enable cross-functional users to increase and protect profitability. Prior to his current role, Richard was President of CAPS Logistics, the forerunner of supply chain optimization. Richard is a frequent speaker at national conferences and leading academic institutions. His current focus is to challenge executives to improve their company’s competitive position by turning enterprise wide data from a liability to an asset through the use of applied business analytics.

Are Your Omni-Channel / E-Commerce Sales Really Profitable? Part 4

Richard Sharpe Analytics & Big Data

 

This is the final posting of this series focused on Omni-Channel / E-Commerce profitability.  The focus of this posting is on the impact of product returns.

We have defined the four components of the Total Cost To Serve (TCTS) for Omni-Channel / E-Commerce orders to be:

  1. The cost to purchase or manufacture the products, often referred to as the product’s Standard cost
  2. The costs to position inventory to be ready for order fulfillment activities
  3. The costs to actually fulfill the Omni-Channel consumer order, and
  4. The cost of product returns

After defining these costs, we offered the straight forward profitability equation of:

Omni-Channel Order Profit = Net Revenue – (A+B+C+D)

Today, we are going to specifically focus on the cost category above.

The problem

When consumers buy a product sight unseen, there is often a level of uncertainty about whether the product will be what they actually want. Retailers often offer free returns for customer satisfaction, an offer that consumers use to their fullest advantage. But how does that affect the overall profitability for the retailer?  Seem simple?  The answer is often not so obvious.

Let’s start with the revenue part of the equation.  A returned product turns a positive into a negative because the actual revenue received for the transaction has been returned to the consumer.  The loss associated with the order also has to account for all of the costs associated with the returns process.  These returned product costs can be more significant than most people realize.  Let’s break down product return costs in more detail.

Original Order Fulfillment Costs (sunk costs) – since the product(s) are being returned, the original order fulfillment costs are now not being covered by the revenues associated with the order.  Therefore, these are now sunk costs that need to be absorbed.

Inventory Carrying Costs – the length of time that a consumers holds the product can have a significant impact on inventory carrying costs.  When an initial order is filled, the typical inventory replenishment process applies which can mean that new replacement inventories have been ordered.  Therefore, in reality the seller of the product now has working capital tied up in inventory sitting at the consumer’s location, inventory in-transit as it is being shipped back to the seller’s receiving locations as well as new replenishment inventory.  This can significantly increase the levels of working capital tied up in product inventories.  Forecasting returns can help but most companies end up replenishing inventory to ensure there are no lost sales, given their lack of confidence in their data.

Return Transportation Costs – this category of cost is dependent upon whether the consumer pays the shipping fee to return the product.  If not, then return transportation costs can add significant increases to profit losses.

Secondary Handling Costs – assuming the returned product is placed back into storage or on the shelf, there are costs associated with the receiving, inspecting and put-a-way activities for the returned product.

Disposal Costs – if the product is not going to be placed back in general inventory and it is to be discarded or destroyed, then there may be a disposition cost associated with the returned product.

All of these costs are demonstrated in the visual below and can have a significant impact on the profitability of an Omni-Channel / E-Commerce channel.

Blog026_diagram_ecommerce_return

The solution

So how do retailers selling in the Omni-Channel / E-Commerce tackle this issue?  The solution starts by again recognizing the wisdom in the adage “one size does not fit all”.  Treating all customer product returns the same way is simply a formula for failure.

The solution starts by segmenting Omni-Channel / E-Commerce customers by understanding their overall net profit contributions over time.  This requires having specific and accurate facts regarding exact profit performance for Omni-Channel / E-Commerce customers including the frequency and impact of their product returns.

This form of segmentation enables the creation of tailored product return policies that help manage the negative impact on profitability.  Informed policies regarding how products are returned, if there are shipping fees, if charges apply for returned products or if there are defined time windows for products to be returned.

Of course this may drive some customers to shop with another retailer.  But that may not be such a bad thing from a competitive advantage perspective!

I would love to hear your thoughts.

All the best,

Richard

Richard Sharpe

Richard Sharpe is CEO of Competitive Insights, LLC (CI), a founding officer of the American Logistics Aid Network(ALAN) and designated by DC Velocityas a Rainmaker in the industry. For the last 25 years, Richard has been passionate about driving business value through the adoption of process and technology innovations. His current focus is to support CI’s mission to enable companies to gain maximum value through specific, precise and actionable insights across the organization for smarter growth. CI delivers Enterprise Profit Insights (EPI) solutions that enable cross-functional users to increase and protect profitability. Prior to his current role, Richard was President of CAPS Logistics, the forerunner of supply chain optimization. Richard is a frequent speaker at national conferences and leading academic institutions. His current focus is to challenge executives to improve their company’s competitive position by turning enterprise wide data from a liability to an asset through the use of applied business analytics.

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are your omni-channel /
e-commerce sales really profitable? part 4

the focus of this posting is on the impact of product returns

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customer buying patterns ::
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