| Solution |
"This has been one of
the most valuable workshops I have
ever attended. I have learned a tremendous
amount and the visionary thinking
was exceptional…"
|
| - Regional Team |
A team of experts from the company attended
three Workshops conducted by CTE
spread over two years - from 2001 to
2003. During this period, CTE
helped the company conceptualize, prototype
and build three portals, while another
powerful Application is being built
and rolled out in phases.
In Q1 of 2002, the initial Field
Employee Portal Application,
that allows field employees to accurately
manage inventory in individual stores
in real-time, was developed. This solution
was designed to empower the field employee
with a hi-impact tool that would help
record current inventory and access
store-specific inventory/title recommendations.
It would also help identify and react
to suspicious sales patterns and quickly
order for replenishment inventory beyond
the automatic recommendation, or locate
missing shipments.
The initial pilot was rolled out to
a few users to gather user feedback
and assess the state of wireless coverage.
One of the key findings of the pilot
was that the wireless coverage was inadequate
and did not provide sufficient reliability
or availability. Meanwhile, in order
to retain and lead its position as an
indispensable link in the supply-chain,
the company has embarked on a variety
of initiatives that allow it better
to serve its customers.
Subsequent to the initial Field Employee
Application portal project, the Vendor
Portal and the
Customer
Portal were also developed.
The Vendor Portal lets company customers
better understand how their inventory
performs on multiple levels, carefully
manage inventory to minimize overstocked
and out-of-stock items, and use music
for cross-selling to generate additional
store revenues. The Customer Portal
is for store customers via online kiosks
in stores, where they can pre-order
music, thus improving customer satisfaction
and generating additional shopping trips
to the store.
|
| Sales Force
Automation Portal (SFA2) |
Recently, the company felt the need
to replace the field force tool supported
by their current SFA Application Service Provider. However,
any SFA implementation needs to incorporate
the company's long-term vision for its
sales force as well as the functionality
gap in the current SFA Suite.
The company decided to go ahead with SFA2.
The understanding gained while creating
the three portals over two years of a matured
relationship between CTE and
the company formed the basis for the client to leverage
our offshore capabilities in India to
build the SFA2.
SFA2 will strengthen the company's field
force's primary objective: to "merchandize,"
i.e., to see that the stores they service
display the titles to sell. It will
also make one of their secondary tasks
- to scan the stores from time to time
to report the correct inventory position
to the company's systems - a lot easier
to perform. With SFA2, the company hopes
to have a more efficient inventory scan
system in place to reduce the amount
of time field reps spend on scanning.
The SFA2 will provide new capability
and functionality in:
Visibility of how product or store is
performing down the hierarchy to drive
in-store productivity, Time and activity
capture to improve schedule and utilize
field rep's time better Alerts, such
as suspicious sales, watchlist, PUMA.
Manual alerts to create greater responsiveness
among the field force and also as a
call to action to adjust inventory at
the individual title level.
Dock to stock action items:
Greater visibility on the last mile
in the shipping process: Time taken
to merchandise after product reaches
store.
Replace a paper based reporting system
related to compliance/audit of promotions,
in-store displays conducted by the company
on behalf of the stores.
The proposed Scan module under SFA2
will replace the existing inventory
scanning system and process. The existing
system is proprietary and uses outdated
technology, leading to maintenance and
support issues. SFA2 proposes to replace
this existing proprietary system with
scan guns attached to a handheld for
greater ease of use for the field reps.
Scanner-handheld system will offer enhanced
capabilities in terms of speed, scan
performance, and superior reporting
capability as compared with the current
system.
Also SFA2 will support standards based
on open platform architecture (the handheld
and laptop applications for SFA2 will
be built using Microsoft .net framework
and the server side functions using
Oracle 9iAS portal's framework.)
In addition to the creation of the Scan
functions, SFA2 will also create alerts,
reports and surveying capabilities for
the field rep's supervisors. SFA2 will
also enable a medium to push alerts,
tasks, and reports down to the field.
The company hopes that the smarter capturing
of scan data and reporting capability
through the handheld device would allow
reps to make better decisions on the
field.
The SFA2 application will be built to
cater not only to the music merchandize
but also any future products that could
be catered by the company for their customers.
"It's one of the biggest
development projects for the Offshore
Development Center (ODC). We are providing
an end-to-end enterprise solution beyond
the Web-based applications, a high-impact
application involving multiple devices.
We are integrating new technologies
to provide a solution that solves a
problem that was directly impacting
the company's bottom line. We are leveraging
the ODC to gain the benefits of developing
the application offshore - through a
combination of a highly-skilled team
and SEI-CMM compliant process expertise,
we are delivering a solution that has
received great accolades from the client,"
says Ramesh Reddy, Vice President Operations
of the ODC. |
| Benefits |
The SFA2 will replace the functionality
of the current field sales full service
provider with greater capability application.
The functionalities are built on a new
architecture to ensure current business
processes can be executed, as opposed
to the company's current Application Service
Provider, which held an uncertain future.
The company estimates that the savings
due to reduced return logistics alone
would amount to $2.2 million annually
from reduced return logistics, improved
inventory management through expedited
information flow, new cross-selling
opportunities for mass merchant customers
and improved distribution channel for
additional products. |
