Wholesale Distribution
Business and Inventory Challenges
High customer service levels are critically important to wholesale distributors. An unserved order usually means a lost sale. So service level shortfalls directly reduce the top line.But achieving outstanding service levels is difficult. When you increase your inventories, service levels respond slightly, if at all. This challenge is fueled by recent trends: Offshore supplies create longer, less flexible lead times. Brand extensions and shorter product life cycles increase the number of SKUs and obsolescence risk. These trends increase demand and supply volatility and decrease the effectiveness of your inventory.
ToolsGroup's Unique Capabilities
In this environment, ToolsGroup has the ability to deliver stable, reliable and very high service levels. In addition, we deliver improved short-term forecast accuracy, which is critical to achieving very high levels of service. ToolsGroup's dynamic inventory engine calculates safety stocks and other inventory parameters for a globally optimal inventory mix across up to millions of SKU-Locations.ToolsGroup solutions also address many of the specific needs of wholesale distributors such as handling:
- Purchasing/Replenishment optimization
- Transportation constraints such as minimum shipment order quantities
- Product expiration and substitution, new product launches
- Complex multi-echelon network models
Successes
ToolsGroup is successfully deployed at more than 30 wholesale distribution customers, such as:- Ingram Micro (Electronics)
- Nireo (Hardware)
- Gallego Vilar (Construction Materials)
- ABM (Appliances)
- And many others