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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 »

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 »

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 »

Enterprise Asset Management

August 2nd, 2011 by Devender Aerrabolu

Manufacturing facilities are comprised of very complex and expensive assets. Enterprise Asset Management (EAS) software helps senior management to protect those assets by ensuring that the necessary maintenance schedule is adhered to and that the investment is protected. Best practices of EAM installation and implementation include several ideas that help enterprises to maximize the output of their assets.

IT systems that are used to manage asset data should allow for organization-wide information sharing and knowledge retention. In conjunction, the EAM software must deal with the asset lifecycle phases including planning, engineering, maintenance and operation, and eventually the decommissioning of the assets.

The EAM application should be opened to vendors and suppliers such as engineering firms and maintenance contractors who work with the enterprise. This will allow better and more efficient communication and scheduling. The EAM application will also reduce repeated data entry into enterprise resources planning (ERP) applications and/or computerized maintenance management (CMMS) applications. Real-time data entry, on the other hand, provides better coordination between the contractors and the internal enterprise maintenance personnel and ultimately more efficient use of the assets.

An effective EAM package will support plant design and engineering during the often years-long lifecycle of an asset. The EAM software can assist the maintenance department of the enterprise to manage and record all data from the various projects it is responsible for on a daily basis.

During the evaluation process of a potential EAM solution, it is important to determine if incorporating enterprise 2.0 features that will contribute to an open, communicative environment for the sharing of ideas and expertise. Additionally, decision-makers should evaluate the usability enhancements that provide managerial support for real-time maintenance tasks.

Lastly, EAM solutions should be implemented as a part of a broader set of applications that capture data failures, schedule people, projects, and materials, and outline purchasing requirements–leveraging the functionality of the EFP applications. The selection of a effective EAM software solution to manage assets can enhance and improve the value of the enterprise.

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

Designing Secure Web Applications

June 7th, 2011 by Devender Aerrabolu

The professionals who design enterprise web applications must ensure that security issues are designed into the application from the ground up. Web architects, developers and designers follow specific guidelines to counteract potential points of application vulnerability. Key areas where web design may be vulnerable include: input validation, authentication, parameter manipulation, auditing, logging, configuration and session management, and cryptology; among others.

The application itself is responsible for the authentication and identification of the user; especially important since all subsequent authorization decisions are based on the initial authorization. The designers and developers of the web applications are responsible for the secure authentication and session management issues. Even if the company network is secure, much of the input and output of data occurs over public networks and therefore web applications must prevent parameter manipulation and avoid the disclosure of sensitive data.

Early in the design phase of the application, the team of web architects and designers take into consideration corporate deployment and security practices and policies as well as the existing infrastructure. In addition to the actual design of the enterprise application, all of the requirements from the different departments and divisions of the company must be considered and the design must be kept flexible enough to accommodate future security and support needs.

The application is continually evolving from the design phase through the maintenance, with ongoing internal and external development and security issues based on the limitations of the foundation platform.

Security design challenges are less likely to emerge when high quality work is completed up front making it easier to anticipate, easier to control costs, and easier to take care of any anticipated or unanticipated problems early in the installation and implementation stages.

Posted in Applications, Systems Integration, Web Development | No Comments »

The Business Unit and Operational Technology Implementation

May 24th, 2011 by Devender Aerrabolu

Operational technology (OT) can be defined as technology utilized for a company’s physical equipment that is developed, implemented and supported as a separate entity from the regular IT department. According to the Gartner Group, by successfully converging the IT and OT environments, IT specialists could capitalize on their business practices, reduce costs for their organizations, and lower risks for their co,ponies and shareholders.

Various current systems can be considered part of an OT environment: systems that run a site and its physical equipment, systems for the management and delivery of processes, and real-time software applications. The foundational technology of OT systems are increasing becoming more like IT systems: the platforms, the software applications, the security issues, and the communications infrastructure; this situation is an opportunity for IT specialists to create an alignment model for their organizations.

The areas where IT/OT convergence could occur are software management standards, enterprise architecture support, security models and the integration of information and processes. Benefits are accrued when IT specialists consolidate the people, the resources, and the tools needed to manage and support both IT and OT.

By moving towards the integration of the IT and OT environments, the IT specialists can avoid business units that develop separate technology “islands” that make future integration of technologies within the enterprise difficult; lessen the risks of cyber security by streamlining technology approaches; and eliminate the various standards and policies that can negatively affect the technology infrastructure.

The IT department should be continuously involved in the acquisition, management and development of any new technologies by a company’s business units.

Posted in Business Processes, Systems Integration | No Comments »