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5 Important Inventory Analytics Tactics for Retailers

January 3rd, 2012 by Devender Aerrabolu

The retail industry has always been competitive with very slim profit margins. Retailers can increase their sales, their profits, their relationships with their customers, and their competitiveness by effectively and efficiently managing their inventory. Historical sales data is just as important as accurate sales forecasts in spotting trends and making critical business decisions. Balancing inventory to optimize and maximize ROI entails understanding the marketplace, effectively reducing warehouse costs and customer returns, and improving sales.

Existing applications for reporting and analyzing data are inflexible and inefficient. Many retailers are moving to cloud-based SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) applications for business intelligence analysis and evaluation of business metrics. SaaS and cloud-based solutions can be implemented across all departments, including purchasing, distribution, and point-of-sale, and can be accessed from any location, computer, or mobile device. Cloud-based business intelligence technology has the capability to assist in the management of inventory more rapidly, more efficiently, and more effectively; thereby boosting profits, enhancing the competitive position, and improving customer relationships.

Inventory management is a key component to the success of retailers and several capabilities need to be available to understand the natural fluctuations of inventory and customer buying patterns.

1)Cross-functional data visibility for orders, shipping, receiving, distribution, customer returns, and marketing and advertising promotions.
2)Clear and real-time views of sales trends to maximize and optimize the product mix, including SKUs, categories, and store-by-store or region-by-region sales data.
3)A combination of metrics reports including forecasts sales, invoice aging, point-of-sale data for each reporting period—weekly, monthly, or quarterly.
4)Management capability of warehouse storage needs and inventory supply needs based on past and future sales data.
5)Strategic just-in-time inventory management that also does not negatively impact the supply chain or revenues.

SaaS-based inventory management systems does not require in-house IT resources for installation or maintenance of the applications, and allow for rapid deployment of applications. Many retailers are moving to on-demand business intelligence for their inventory management needs in order to realize cost savings, increase the speed and flexibility of data retrieval and analysis, and reduce dependent on location-based IT departments.

Posted in Applications, Business Processes, Ecommerce, Engineering Change Management, Hosting, Internet Retail, Physical Inventory, SaaS, Smart Warehouse, SMB, Systems Integration | No Comments »

Innovate Your DFR and DPT Practices

December 20th, 2011 by Devender Aerrabolu

Storage I/O solutions, in considering cost-effectiveness and best practices, address primary storage data footprint reduction (DFR) as well as support for data protection and recovery (DPR). DFR implementation allows more data to be stored in a smaller footprint and includes archiving email, databases, and file systems, real-time data compression, storage tiering, and thin provisioning. The tools and best practices policies of DPR include daily backup and restore, business continuity, disaster recovery, and meeting Service Level Objectives (SLOs) archiving requirements, recovery time objectives (RTOs), and recovery point objectives (RPOs).

The IT departments of MBEs are faced with supporting enterprise growth while simultaneously maintaining Quality of Service (QoS) and managing budgetary constraints. Data must be protected from various internal and external threats and disaster recovery and restoration capabilities must be effectively enhanced. Additionally, reliability and accessibility of data must constantly be improved.

Innovation and optimization, focusing on the source of DPR challenges and the performance of DPR and DFR technologies will help enterprise and MBE IT departments meet the challenges and demands of data storage, data protection and recovery, and RTOs and RPOs in a cost-effective and timely manner.

•Real-time compression leverages performance rates and response times and enables more data to be stored in a more dense data footprint.
•DFR techniques can be re-focused from downstream storage to complementary active and online reference data primary storage optimization, while maintaining and improving performance.
•More effectively utilizing primary storage resources such as cache and premium tier 0 storage—another use of real-time compression, can accomplish expansion of the current data footprint.

Any innovative changes must be seamless and transparent while providing interoperability with the various IVS storage products while co-existing with current DR techniques.

The IT professional can produce real ROI results for the company through innovation and optimization initiatives that maximize and enhance DFR and DPR practices while reducing the costs to manage the resources necessary.

Posted in Applications, Business Processes, Engineering Change Management, Systems Integration | No Comments »

A Future for Network IDS/IPS

December 6th, 2011 by Devender Aerrabolu

Organizations seek to protect their networks from external and internal threats have utilized a variety of security strategies, including network-based intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDS/IPS). Over the years these systems have evolved from supplying information to security professional about potential attacks to also including details about the overall effectiveness of defenses against any attacks. Today, such information is considered essential and mandatory components of an organization’s network security strategy and is regulated and audited. Additionally, such information can be used as forensics data to prosecute attackers.

As with all systems technologies, network IDS/IPS trends continue to evolve, affecting organizational data security planning in several ways:

•Critical security and compliance systems should be able to identify, monitor, and inspect the installed client applications on the network.
•Security personnel value the ability to have ready access to a range of contextual data including network behavior, user identity, potential attacks, and defense mechanisms.
•Virtual networking environments are supported by visibility into the actual environment and its operations.
•Selection considerations, including consolidation benefits, real-world performance metrics, network security requirements, technology refresh cycles, and budgetary constraints.

According to an October 7, 2011 article by the Gartner Group titled “Defining Next-Generation Intrusion Prevention”, there are six critical minimum attributes that next-generation intrusion prevention systems should have:

1)An inline, bump-in-the configuration that does not interrupt network operations.
2)A set of standard first-general IPS capabilities that support vulnerability- and threat-facing signatures.
3)Functionalities including application awareness and full-stack visibility that identify applications and enforce network security policy at the network layer.
4)Context awareness functionality to bring information from all outside sources to improve blocking decisions and/or modify the blocking rule sets.
5)Content awareness functionality that inspects and classifies inbound executable files including Adobe PDF™ and Microsoft Office™ files.
6)Agile engine capabilities that support upgrade paths to integrate new information feeds and new techniques as future potential threats emerge.

Organizational security teams are responsible for addressing the diverse functional requirements within and throughout the network. Additionally, security personnel must manage and balance different technology life cycles and acquisition schedules. It is vitally important to the entire organization that the implemented network intrusion prevention and detection systems keep pace with the ever-increasing threats to technological and security threats faced today by enterprises of all sizes.

Posted in Applications, Business Processes, Systems Integration | No Comments »

ERP System Solutions

November 16th, 2011 by Devender Aerrabolu

When you successfully implement a flexible ERP system, you equip your manufacturing operations team with the best solutions that provide relevant real-time data and improve rapid responses to any business changes—whether your critical data resides on one or multiple systems. ERP allows you to execution processes and streamline your operations for the most efficient change management.

Refining your business processes to be more “disciplined” actually allows them to be more “flexible” as opposed to “rigid”. This flexibility makes your data more visible to relevant decision-makers, speeds up just-in-time ordering, and improves the use of critical business resources. Your enterprise can respond to trends, minimize costs, increase profit margins, and reduce delivery times.

Each member of your management team benefits from an integrated ERP system, improving the day-to-day productivity and overall effectiveness of the entire management staff.

The Sales Manager: An effective ERP allows the sales manager to focus on delivering orders, generating reliable sales forecasts, improving the sales performance of the field sales team, and providing excellent customer service.

The Supply Chain Executive: A flexible ERP systems frees the supply chain executive to focus on the core responsibilities of supporting operations, reducing material costs, and servicing the needs of customers.

The Plant Manager: Plant managers can utilize an effective ERP system to focus on plant operations, improve the productivity of the labor forces, improve quality, and meet the required customer service levels.

The VP of Operations: A flexible ERP system helps the VP of Operations to access the real-time data needed to make the most effective decisions, balance the allocation of resources, provide consistent customer service, and manage costs.

The Finance Executive: A successful ERP implementation provides the Finance Executive with the tools necessary to automate the data collection process, focus on initiatives that improve the financial health of the enterprise, and enhance cash management and regulatory reporting.

Changing your company from manual processes to a flexible ERP allows you and your management staff to rely on your business processes to manage your operations.

Posted in Applications, Business Processes, Change Log Management, Compliance Regulations, Engineering Change Management, Physical Inventory, Quality Assurance, Shop Floor Control, Smart Warehouse, Systems Integration | No Comments »

The Case for an Effective ERP System

November 2nd, 2011 by Devender Aerrabolu

Your critical business data is one of the keys to your business growth. The ability to quickly respond to business changes depends on your business processes. A variety of changes could be affected by the capability of your enterprise to be proactive, including customer delivery schedules, new product introductions, global business trends, or supply chain expansion.

A complete reconstruction of your business processes begins with a successful implementation of an effective ERP system. There are two major categories of changes realized with a flexible ERP system:

1)The current divergent systems can be automated and linked to enhance the movement of your critical business data and to provide your executive management with real-time reports for the highest level of decision-making.
2)Highly disciplined workflows can be created that will implement the consistent processes required for the most reliable outcomes irrespective of any business changes.

An integrated ERP system will have a positive impact on your manufacturing operations. Each of the core business units needs its own documentation that points out any inefficiencies associated with your present change management procedures and can yield cost-effectiveness. The management team associated with those core business groups: the sales executive, the finance manager, the plant manager, the operations manager, and the supply chain executive will have access to the necessary insight for the most advantageous synchronization of all systems.

Many small- to mid-sized enterprises still rely on manual creation of business data integration. There are a variety of issues that impact your continuous business development, including managing your profit margins and increasing your ability to handle any changes to your enterprise and your effective response to competitive pressures.

Posted in Applications, Business Processes, Change Log Management, Physical Inventory, Shop Floor Control | No Comments »

How CMOs can Deliver Measurable Results

October 18th, 2011 by Devender Aerrabolu

The primary jobs of an enterprise business-to-business marketing officer are to develop strong brands, to build creative marketing campaigns, and to publish compelling content. But CMOs are also accountable to management to deliver value and measurable results on often intangible variables. One tool used by CMOs is called the integrated demand generation platform, which is a record system used for the planning, measuring, and implementation of multi-channel marketing campaigns. This marketing solution monitors and reacts to the buying signals of customers and clients, as well as to the marketing messages and website visits—signals that drive the sales cycle.

There are at least four overreaching questions that are faced by B2B marketers:

1)How to effectively reach the right prospects?
2)How to generate and manage qualified leads for the sales department?
3)How to measure the impact and value of marketing campaigns?
4)How to automate the marketing process?

The integrated demand generation platform is the tool used by marketers to produce qualified leads for the sales force in the field. It includes:

•A central depository for all information about prospects and customers, including the behaviors, activities, and interests in aggregate form.
•Effective tools for prospect and customer lists that can be refined to execute online and offline marketing channels.
•Comprehensive measuring tools for campaigns such as reports and analytics.
•Integration with other systems including sales force automation and customer relationship management.

With integrated demand generation platforms, marketing departments can optimize marketing ROI, effective target prospects, utilize lead scoring algorithms, nurture leads to cultivate more relevant buyer behavior, measure and report marketing results, increase sales revenue and decrease the sales cycle, automate the marketing and sales processes, and most importantly, align the marketing goals with the projected sales opportunities.

Posted in Business Processes, Ecommerce, Internet Retail, Systems Integration | No Comments »

Embracing Digital Resources in your Enterprise

October 4th, 2011 by Devender Aerrabolu

In order for the enterprise to successfully incorporate digital channels into the overall business strategy, the marketing department must work with the IT department to bring and keep digital channels to the highest levels possible. If the planning and implementation of a digital strategy is not structured properly, then both the marketing department and the IT department can run into potential problems such as: inconsistent branding, wasted resources, and limited impact on the business goals and objectives.

Many companies today, especially those who sell directly to the end customer, have Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and email-marketing campaigns. Retail enterprises also allocate a major portion of their marketing to digital channels and design and maintain e-commerce sites. However, often the efforts of the disparate departments of an enterprise yield disparate results that add no value to the customer experience.

When striving to keep branding consistent, the digital marketing initiatives complement the overall brand and “fill in the gaps” in the customer life cycle. Digital marketing can also actually reinvent the customer relationship by adding value to direct consumer connection to the brand.

It falls upon the chief marketing officer (CMO) of the enterprise to embrace and manage the key components of the digital strategy and ensure that all digital efforts align with the business goals and objectives. Several initiatives can be adopted:

•Digital marketing can be aligned around specific consumer groups instead of just audience demographics.
•The digital marketing campaigns can be synchronized around the life cycle of the consumer.
•The CMO can utilize measurable business intelligence analytics supplied by the chief information officer (CIO) to optimize direct consumer responses to the marketing efforts.

The CMO who designs and implements a successful enterprise-wide digital marketing strategy considers how digital will fit into each stage of the consumer life cycle, integrates the customer relationship into the branding operation, and transforms the customer experience.

Posted in Applications, Business Processes, Ecommerce, Internet Retail, Systems Integration, Web Development | No Comments »

Data Center Power Systems Best Practices (2)

September 20th, 2011 by Devender Aerrabolu

Power system failures can severely hamper data center operations; extreme weather poses significant risk to a continuous power source. There are several best practices that can be utilized by IT departments to ensue maximum uptime for the data centers for their organizations. The first five were detailed earlier; the remainder will be discussed here.

1)IT departments and facilities managers can benefit by having on going monitoring and diagnostics that are enterprise-wide and proactive. Disciplined work practices and processes for software consultations and swift response actions will allow for the effective use of software for mission-critical equipment including power systems, environmental, and life and safety systems.
2)Establish and maintain contingency plans to deal with the loss of water and power. Extensive research, planning, and cost-benefit analyses should be executed to prepare for situations beyond the control of the enterprise, such as natural or man-made disasters.
3)Build redundancy into the power system topology. Although more expensive to purchase and install, data center redundancy will allow for much faster recovery after a power outage.
4)It may seem obvious, but replacing outdated equipment and UPS systems increases overall data center availability while also reducing cost of ownership to the enterprise.
5)Regular auditing of power systems by the data center managers will yield up-to-date information on the total infrastructure of mission-critical equipment capacity.

IT departments and facilities management engineers, working together, can help to mitigate power system downtimes by cooperatively establishing best practices for modern data center infrastructures.

Posted in Business Processes, Change Log Management, Engineering Change Management, Inspection Management | No Comments »

Data Center Power Systems: Best Practices (1)

September 6th, 2011 by Devender Aerrabolu

The recent extreme weather in many parts of the United States in the spring and summer of 2011 resulted in many IT department re-evaluating the power systems of their critical data centers.

There are several best practices that can be utilized by IT departments to ensue maximum uptime for the data centers for their organizations. The first five will be outlined here; the remainder will be discussed in a later post.

1)Because of the increased capacity of most server infrastructures, including the adoption of blade servers and virtualization, power overloads are much more common. Companies should have established written document for practices and procedures to allow IT departments and facilities managers to work together to for data center power systems management and maintenance.
2)Data center new construction or renovation projects should emphasize long-term value over short-term costs; including rewards for construction teams that have long-term views for their procurement procedures.
3)IT departments should, along with the facilities departments, standardize uniform maintenance processes using the definition of frameworks such as the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL. Adoption of uniform standards will allow for better control over the assets of the IT departments and proactive maintenance for less downtime.
4)IT departments can also work with the facilities engineers to establish a comprehensive change management database (CMDB) to assist in the rapid resolution of emergency situations and to ensure continuity in processes.
5)Data center availability should be measured in both reliability—the mean time between system failures (MTBF), and the MTTR, or the mean time required to repair the system.

IT departments and facilities management engineers, working together, can help to mitigate power system downtimes by cooperatively establishing best practices.

Posted in Business Processes, Engineering Change Management, Inspection Management | No Comments »

Computerized Maintenance Management Systems

August 16th, 2011 by Devender Aerrabolu

Facilities management includes scheduling regular maintenance and the costs of keeping the production floor running smoothly. Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) automate all the processes and information required by facilities managers. CMMS is also called Enterprise Asset Management, and is a software solution package that maintains a database of information about all of a company’s maintenance operations for their assets and all associated costs.

A comprehensive CMMS or EAM solution provides:
*        the ability to keep track of each piece of equipment owned or leased by the company.
*        the ability ti track human resources.
*        the ability to enter and track the locations of all equipment.
*        detailed information of safety plans for the production floor.
*        the ability to track inventory.
*        the ability to track and manage all aspects of work orders
*        the ability to quickly and easily run reports.
*        the ability to provide work history for all facilities locations and equipment.
*        the ability to requisition any and all materials for work orders.
*        the ability to keep track of existing maintenance contracts
*        the ability to provide key performance metrics for the maintenance department.

During the evaluation process before investing in a CMMS or EAM solution, the decision makers should consider the Return on Investment (ROI) and run real-world tests specific to the organization; only the modules actually needed should be purchased.

The CMMS or EAM solution should not be developed in-house; many solutions are already available through vendors. The solution purchased should be flexible and easily modified. Ensure that the data on the existing system is easily transferred to the new system. The solution provider should be experienced and have the capability to offer full support, including installation, testing, and staff training.

Another major decision is whether the chosen CMMS solution will be web-based or on-site. Time should be taken to perform a cost-benefit analysis on the pros and cons of selecting a web-based system versus an on-site installation.

Posted in Applications, Business Processes, Hosting, Physical Inventory, Shop Floor Control, Systems Integration | No Comments »