Nowadays, business competition is no longer a simple business activity of a single enterprise. The emergence of emerging management technologies such as strategic enterprise alliance, supply chain management and ECR (Efficient Customization Response Mechanism) is undoubtedly the product of this trend. On the one hand, unprecedented powerful manufacturing machines constantly produce a large number of products, on the other hand, consumers are often at a loss in the face of dazzling shelves; Consumers and we face the same choice. What should we do in the face of complex and diverse products and redundant information? In essence, the core of the problem is how to control our operating costs while maintaining and improving the competitive customized service level as much as possible! Among them, a reasonable and appropriate inventory scale is the most important!
Just like the well-known 7R principle, the optimization of supply chain system is a long-term and continuous action, not a short-term behavior of an organization. Among them, there are both external competitive change factors and related socialization factors, as well as internal factors from the internal needs of enterprises to improve their core competitiveness. From the internal factors of enterprises: inventory planning, demand planning forecast, supply chain response speed, system accuracy and error rate are undoubtedly the focus of our attention.
The change, tracking and control of inventory state have already surpassed the concept of pure quantity under our usual concept. Judging from the latest management technology trends in the industry, strategic partnership alliance has become our common challenge. Today, with the internationalization of domestic competition, the socialization of enterprise survival and the cruelty of horizontal competition, "customer-enterprise-supplier" is no longer three independent operation units in the traditional sense, just as our operation management platform is changing from traditional "ERP" to "SCM". Without the active participation of partners, our supply chain system is like water without resources, and the control and management of inventory plan also depends on us.
ECR- Efficient Customer Response
ECR (Efficient Customer Response) originated in the United States. It was initiated by Wal-Mart, a global retail giant, on the basis of QR rapid response concept and was first popularized in the food industry. Whether it is ECR or QR, the background is not the key. The crux of the problem lies in what the idea behind the ECR concept can bring to our actual operation.
IT should be said that the rapid development of IT information technology is an extremely important prerequisite for the emergence and large-scale promotion of ECR and QR. It is hard for us to imagine how ECR would operate without the existence of basic platforms such as EDI, electronic barcode system and front-end POS system! The core of ECR is to integrate the original independent customers, enterprises and suppliers into a strategic consortium, and form a dynamic and win-win business ecosystem covering the whole business process on the premise of meeting the demand of customized services quickly with advanced IT information system as the platform.
Different from the traditional push-push operating system, ECR is a typical pull-pull operating system. The whole process and operation in the chain are based on the needs of customers, integrating the resources of the whole system around this core, meeting the customized service needs with minimum investment and then obtaining the expected benefits! As mentioned above, the development of basic platform technologies such as EDI, barcode and RFID makes ECR like a duck to water! Because the core of ECR is: cooperation, * * * sharing and win-win. The electronic information exchange system based on barcode, RFID and other data acquisition technologies will enable us to obtain the sales changes of the goods in the store immediately on the terminal platform, thus completely eliminating the excess inventory and even lowering the setting standard of safety inventory!
CRP- continuous supply system
As mentioned above, CRP (continuous replenishment practice) is an operation strategy accompanying ECR system. Without ECR system as a platform, the continuous replenishment system will not work. And the enjoyment of information is obviously the core of all processes! The data of the front-end POS system will be immediately presented on the terminal of the relevant strategy consortium through the Internet network and EDI system directly or indirectly (which mainly depends on our control over the access and level of * * * *), and become the basis of its continuous replenishment. What we usually say here, such as large-scale transportation and economic quantity control, seems to be no longer applicable, and it seems that our distribution cost will increase greatly.
There are two considerations in this question:
Which is more important and practical for us, CRP based on ECR strategy or mass transportation based on distribution cost control?
The answer is obvious, no one will think that the latter will be our choice! Compared with the overall cost reduction brought by the distribution cost, it will almost certainly affect our expected income. Obviously, CRP continuous replenishment based on ECR strategy will bring us more practical benefits, and the improvement of system turnover efficiency brought by CRP continuous replenishment can often easily make up for our loss in distribution costs! Not to mention the hidden benefits in customer loyalty and reducing terminal shortage!
Another question is whether CRP based on ECR strategy and large-scale transportation based on distribution cost control are completely opposite?
There is no doubt that the so-called optimization and control of transportation scale is relative to the batches and batches of distribution; There are no quantitative batches and batch allocations. Obviously, the so-called optimal control of transportation scale does not have much practical significance! In short, it is the existence of flow and frequency that leads to the so-called optimization and control of transportation scale; On the other hand, it is the batch and batch changes brought by CRP continuous replenishment based on ECR strategy that make our transportation scale optimization more realistic financial value!
Vendor managed inventory
VMI( Vendor Manager Inventory) is obviously related to and dependent on the first two systems. The success of VMI system lies in that the setting standard of inventory level is aimed at the reliable and detailed sales forecast based on the front-end POS data system, thus reducing the inventory scale and maintaining the optimization of inventory. Through the coordination and interaction of the whole ECR strategy consortium, small-scale continuous replenishment improves the turnover frequency of SKU and reduces the shortage of channel terminals.
Two key links in VMI implementation are: market demand forecast and replenishment plan determination! And this is the core of the first two strategies!
a few questions
Information * * * Enjoy VS trade secrets. For any business enterprise, the value of information is obvious, and no one will disclose all his business plans to the world! But as mentioned above, the core of these three strategies is * * * to enjoy information! Where on earth should we go? Build your own information platform or outsource it to a third party? In a word, this is an extremely sensitive topic, which is also the significance of our title of strategic partnership!
IT information platform. The construction of IT information platform is undoubtedly the key to our above three strategies. Whether it is data collection based on different data collection methods such as barcode or RFID, or data processing and sharing, the information text format based on EDI system is undoubtedly an extremely important and easily overlooked problem! On the other hand, the functional modules covered by our IT information system have gone far beyond our front-end data acquisition system, data analysis and processing system and even WMS- warehouse management system, DTMS- distribution and transportation management system. Our system is becoming more and more complex and huge! But our software systems often come from different suppliers, which brings the problem of system compatibility!
Synergy and strategic partnership are our core, but the real synergy and win-win is a strategic alliance established in pursuit of competitive interests! It is obviously difficult to form a real strategic alliance without the same interests and competitive interests of all parties! Of course, cooperation is impossible!