Career Advice

Introduction to 73 Ideas to Reduce Costs and Build Profits in Ware-Housing, Distribution Centres and Inventory Management

 “Do you want to know 50 great profit building ideas that you can put to immediate use in your business to increase profits and reduce costs?”

 

If YES read all these ideas that have been implemented by clients and have benefited them giving their businesses dramatic boost in profitability. Most ideas can be put to action immediately. Each idea has the potential to give you many %points increase in net profits.

 

Research shows profits increase by 4%-56% and costs reduce by 18%-37% within 2 years using the simple 5 step process called the Profit Maps Model. Usually a 5% reduction in cost is adequate to turnaround most loss making businesses.

 

Businesses can calculate the value of the savings by these 2 simple formulas

 

If the business made a loss

Total Costs and Expenses = sales + absolute value of net loss +/- income tax = say X

Minimum Savings you will make in 2 years = 5% of X (which was calculated above)

               

If the business made a profit

Total Costs and Expenses = sales + net profit +/- income tax = say Y

Minimum Savings you will make in 2 years = 5% of Y (which was calculated above)

 

So how much can you save? Improve your profits by?

 

 

25 Ways to be more efficient and serve the customer better in the contact centre

 

Perform post season audit – Determine what went really well, what needed a band aid to get accomplished and what were severe problems. Operational assessment of metrics, productivity, service levels, staff turnover, revenue generation and process improvements which should be considered.

 

Benchmarking-Set up internal benchmarks to reduce your cost per order, cost per call, cost per contact and cost per transaction. Translate these down to department and individual work standards.

 

Staffing models – full time/part time/flex – Labour is your single biggest expense in the contact centre. Take a good look at your current staffing ratio. Full time, if not kept productive, may be costly. Change the mix of full time, part time and flex time staff.

 

Staff turnover- This costs in recruiting, training and initial on the job investment to bring a new person on board. Many contact centres average 40% to 50% or higher. Review the reasons why turnover is so high and put a plan together to reduce it.

 

Outsourcing -Domestic, off shore or near shore for phone, email, mail orders and other documents, etc. So many choices for so many options, you really need to have assistance—but you can save money! Investigate and implement it without sacrificing your quality, customer service or your revenue.

 

Training -Review your training plans and make sure that staff are trained in training sessions, not On the Job Training! This will create shorter “ramp up” times for new hires. A solid, well thought out training plan will pay great dividends and improve customer service. Keep it all consistent to keep the knowledge levels high.

 

Measure by interval and not the day -This will create a need to stay focused and find efficiencies in scheduling and processes. You cannot make it up later in the day; if you missed one interval you lost money, either with labour or sales.

 

Use QA to drive out unneeded processes – If you are not, then you should conduct a review of your processes from a Quality Review point of view. Make sure your Quality Team has three MAIN constituencies in mind as they do their jobs; first and foremost, the paying customer; next the company; and finally, the supervisors and staff for training and coaching. Now make sure that there are no other items staff does that don’t support these efforts.

 

Adherence – If you are suffering during scheduling intervals, make sure your personnel are in the seats at the right time.

 

Occupancy – Manage this gingerly. If done correctly you will run a well oiled machine. If you miss, you will haemorrhage money. Scheduling is the key to maintaining optimal occupancy rates.

 

Workforce software – Many companies are still using Excel for their staffing software. Excel cannot save you as much money year over year as a good workforce program. Team up with Fulfilment Centre to share the system. It will pay for itself quickly. If you have one, understand how to use it to its maximum.

 

Service level review – Are you at the right service level for your customers’ needs? Or are you following a standard that is too high? If so, you are spending a great deal of extra money which may not be necessary.

 

Supervisors -Review your supervisor-to-staff ratio. Are you overstaffed with supervisors or understaffed with supervisors?

 

Speech recognition (VRU) -To some, Speech Recognition is an evil word. But many companies have used it selectively to save a great deal of money. You can, if engineered correctly and your expectations are realistic.

 

Interactive voice response -Are you using it to the best advantage? Contact centres use IVR systems to identify and segment callers (orders versus customer service). This allows the centre to tailor services according to the customer request.

 

Telecomm audit -Make sure you are not paying for services, numbers or locations that you don’t have any longer. You could be spending a great deal more than you need. It is estimated that over 50% of all corporate telephone bills have errors.

 

Call flow review / prompts-Too many branches or prompts will confuse and irritate the customer and cost you telecom charges. Keep it simple; the customer will love you and you can get call types other ways for reporting.

 

Home staff -Add flexibility to your staffing model and reduce the centre’s occupancy costs. Understand what the legal ramifications, supervision, home office work environment and technology aspects are. You can save money and have happy employees.

 

Shared labour -Need help with peak labour? Some companies have found a partner that is contra-seasonal within or outside your niche. This allows you to manage the peaks, reduce start up training expenses and you may be able to barter for time (minutes used).

 

Using an agency for peaks -If you just can’t staff for the peak, seek out a good temporary agency. Contact centres make good use of them, managing like you would your own staff.

 

Email management software -Get onboard with an ASP and start saving on your labour with email and chat functions. It is a win for the customer and a win for you.

 

Cross selling/up-selling -Remember your staff is the eyes and ears to your customers in most cases, so make them your best sales force. More companies need to look at this as a way to increase average order. Will you use incentives to achieve higher results? Your staff can do it effectively and not be offensive to the customer.

 

Analyse call reasons, drive out unneeded call drivers -Understand why the customers are calling. You might have found an area that needs to be reengineered.

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Chat with the customer to secure the sale / drive down calls -If you can engage the customer on the website you should be able to sell them or close the sale for them with chat. Don’t let the shopping cart go empty.

 

Use KPI’s to meet your goals and keep an eye on expenses -If you focus on the right things you will know where your money is going every day, week or month. Measure what is important and keep an eye on it.

 

 

 

 

20 ways to reduce your cost per order, increase capacity without expansion and improve service levels in warehouse and fulfilment

 

Benchmarking -A program to set up internal benchmarks will reduce your cost per order or hold the cost in line as volumes increase. Translate these down to department and individual work standards.

 

Manage the labour force -Labour is the largest controllable expense item in your DC(distribution centre). Successful practices to improve performance can lower your labour cost.

 

Hiring, retention and staff turnover -Labour is your first or second largest expense after outbound freight in the fulfilment centre. Review the reasons why staff turnover is so high and work to close the gap. Review your hiring, retention and training practices. How well are you able to staff for the peaks?

 

Reduce handling and touches -The fewer touches of product, the less cost of shipping an order. Streamline the operation and apply industry best practices to reduce handling and cost of fulfilling an order.

 

Slotting -Effective slotting practices can lower your costs for picking, replenishment, and put away warehouse labour.

 

Team building -Successful organizations take team building seriously. Take your organization to a new level and improve productivity.

 

Picking options -How can you use best practices to improve picking productivity?

 

Use what you have more productively -This is a mantra in fulfilment today. Assessments will help you get more productivity from your layout, space/product storage utilization and staff. By not caring for the basics of fulfilment, you are adding costs to the warehouse operation. Increasing current capacity and utilizing that capacity more effectively are key objectives. Getting as much productivity as possible out of the existing layout, processes and systems first is very important.

 

Performance reporting -The old adage of, “You can’t improve what you don’t measure” is certainly true. An effective measurement and reporting process can improve performance and lower costs.

 

Packing options -How can industry best practices help you improve performance and reduce costs of one of the most labour intensive functions in the warehouse?

 

Freight management-Controlling inbound and outbound freight can make the difference between a profit or loss for your business.

 

Use proper levels of QA(Quality Assurance)-Are you “over inspecting” activities to the point of diminishing returns and spending money that does not result in a return on the investment?

 

Receiving practices and cross docking -Cross docking is an effective practice to reduce handling and costs while improving customer service and shipping costs.

 

Process returns more efficiently – Returns cost more than orders to process. Untimely processing of customer credits, refunds and exchanges can damage customer service. Do assessments that look at use of staff, people, space and systems to improve productivity.

 

Workforce software-Many companies are still using Excel for their staffing software. Excel cannot save you as much money year over year as a good workforce program. Team up with Contact Centre to share a scheduling system. It will pay for itself quickly. If you have one, understand how to use it to its maximum.

 

Outsourcing option -There are practical and cost effective reasons to outsource part or all of your business. It may be to deal with a peak, new product categories or when fulfilment is not a company core competency.

 

Finding the right level of automation and systems -ROI analysis could put automation into your planning for cost improvement. The wrong material handling equipment can be creating hidden lost time and inefficient product flow, impacting cost and customer service.

 

Warehouse management/bar code systems -This should include reviewing how bar coding throughout the warehouse, conveyance, material handling and warehouse management systems can improve productivity, increase service levels and reduce costs.

 

Inventory management in the warehouse-Effective inventory management is the single most important tool to improve customer service and reduce cost of operation.

 

Replenishment practices -Effective replenishment is the basis of successful order fulfilment. Inefficient replenishment will cost huge dollars and negatively impact customer service.

 

 

 

 

17 ways to improve management of forecasting and inventory

 

Benchmarking -Have you developed the necessary metrics for initial customer order fill rates, final fill, inventory turnover, gross margin, lost margin from liquidation, age of inventory, etc.? In turn have these become performance objectives for the Inventory Control Buyers?

 

Streamline process -Assess the processes of seasonal planning, weekly forecasting, and end-of-season analysis for your multichannel business. Streamline how the Inventory Control buyers perform their work and manage inventory. Process improvement should improve planning and forecasting accuracy, and lead to improvement in customer initial order fill rate and turnover.

 

Know your vendors -What are their pain points (space, cash, and capacity)? What are their strengths? Understand these thoroughly to gain maximum leverage. Should you reduce the number of vendors you purchase from to get more leverage?

 

Establish a vendor scorecard -Involve Merchandising, Inventory Control, Fulfilment and Accounting and set up a vendor scorecard to evaluate vendors. This should include sales, margin, on-time delivery, significant problems, etc. Review it several times a year with the vendors. You may even want to take it a step further and set up a vendor recognition program for the top vendors.

 

Visit your top 20 vendors now -Strengthens relationships. Include at least the Merchant and Inventory Control Buyer. Involve vendor’s senior management as well as yours. Have an agenda about your company’s direction, needs and expectations.

 

Manage your vendors -Insist on costs, terms, and conditions with vendors that make sense for your company. It is your responsibility to look out for your interests, theirs to look out for theirs! Develop vendor compliance and charge back policies to enforce compliance.

 

Negotiate terms -Arrange and pay 2Net60 with all domestic vendors.

 

Provide limitless access to information systems -Inventory Control Buyers must have laptops and VPN access to all tools. Pays for itself quickly and frequently.

 

Invest in systems -Provide Inventory Control Buyers easy, efficient, accurate, and timely access to data. Ongoing training, report requests, modification requests should be a management priority. This group spends more money than any other. Support them!

 

Invest in inventory control staff -The Inventory Control Department manages the largest balance sheet asset in the company. Hire and retain strong people, provide them tools, have high expectations of them, then reward their solid performance well. Should you have a different organizational structure?

 

Consistent forecasting philosophy -Be sure all categories and SKUs are forecast using consistent methodology that fits your organization. Challenge it often.

 

Review, recite, retain key data -IC Buyers MUST know their category and vendor inventory levels, turns, SKU count, and GM $ and %. More importantly, understand the impact of their actions to these metrics and to the business.

 

Clear a day’s-work-in-a-day -Ensure timely and accurate data across the organization by demanding all receipts, put away, invoices, PO acknowledgments, orders, (all business transactions) are posted daily.

 

Renegotiate (always) -New PO’s for in-season replenishment of items selling over forecast are due better costs. Ask early and assertively for RTV and/or mark down money for poor performers.

 

Liquidation -Is your company aggressive enough in identifying potential overstocks and putting them into one of 15 different methods used in multichannel companies? Reduce slow selling stock as close to in-season as possible to gain a higher cost recovery.

 

Inbound freight -Have a qualified consultant perform a freight audit to see what additional savings can be gained. Join a freight consortium to maximize savings.

 

Importing -Imported products now represent 50% to 70% of all products in many companies and they give a considerably higher initial mark up and maintained margin. Is your staff managing this inventory effectively? They require longer lead times and higher vendor minimums, which can lead to higher inventories and slower turnover.

 

 

 

 

11 ways to plan for, select and implement effective multichannel business systems

 

Project planning -Proper project planning and the appropriate staffing to support large complex implementation is one of the most critical aspects to reducing unnecessary risks, delivering the application on time and within the budget. A qualified consultant can either project manage or assist your staff in this critical activity.

 

Post implementation audit -At conversion, companies typically use 25% to 35% of a new system’s function effectively. Audit the implementation 30 to 60 days after conversion to evaluate what the software vendor still has not delivered; audit your staff’s responsibilities; itemize how additional training can improve system use; what additional functionality should be scheduled for implementation, what data conversion problems still exist, etc.

 

Return on investment -Understanding how applications will achieve an acceptable ROI will assist with the justification of new applications. Measure the expected or planned ROI against the actual ROI for both savings and intangible (soft) benefits.

 

Enhanced management reporting -By developing more targeted reports of key metrics and benchmarks, management will be able to stay in touch with what’s happening across the enterprise. Develop key performance indicators (KPIs), corporate dashboards and effective reporting for each function or department.

 

Enhanced systems integration -By developing more detailed integrations, manual processes and lack of data between systems can be eliminated, thus reducing errors and bottlenecks and decreasing expenses. Enhanced systems integration will also decrease the need for redundant data between applications.

 

Get more from your computer application -There is always personnel turnover, or companies lose key users of applications. Identify departments and individuals that can benefit from additional training. This will allow you to set up educational programs to address their needs and the company gets improved productivity and analysis.

 

Single source of data -This goes hand in hand with enhanced systems integrations. By reducing the number of times data has to be replicated in various systems, companies can reduce overhead and the potential for errors in redundant data.

 

Contract programmers -Where applicable, this can help reduce the costs of critical enhancements to applications. It can be difficult to find qualified people to hire, in which case, contracting with IT/programming professionals can be more cost effective then attempting to hire programmers.

 

 

Software as a Service (SAAS) -SAAS models can allow companies to reduce the initial investment necessary to implement and maintain applications. By not having to invest in hardware or staffing to maintain an application, companies can reduce their IT expenses. Typical SAAS models place the responsibility of hardware and software maintenance and upgrades with the vendor, reducing staff and expenses. A company only owns usage rights while contracted and does not own licensing rights to the product.

 

Outsourcing-Multichannel businesses have the option to outsource the hardware with various companies in order to reduce staffing and maintenance related expenses. Companies can choose to outsource their existing hardware or shift their applications to new hardware at the outsourcing facility.

 

Use of consultants for development-Using outside consultants and programmers for application development can reduce long term expenses. In addition, outsourcing programming and application development can reduce the need for recruitment and retention of qualified programmers.

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

The more you understand the power of this list, the more you’ll realize you must get your hands on all the other ideas to benefit your business. Go to www.profitmaps.com.au to obtain and use a simple 5 step process that can do this for your business.  

 

As mentioned each idea has the potential to increase your net profit margin by many % points. Research shows profits increase by 4%-56% and costs reduce by 18%-37% within 2 years. Usually a 5% reduction in cost is adequate to turnaround most loss making businesses.

 

To obtain the maximum benefit and ensure that the actions result in improving your bottom-line you need a structured methodology or a process on an on-going basis such as the 5 step process suggested in www.profitmaps.com.au.