Essential Vendor Compliance Update

July 2006 Vendor Compliance Optimization and Retail Continuous Improvement Update

Go With The Flow...

It is normally pretty difficult to sell merchandise that is on a truck or sitting in a warehouse.
Merchandise that spends unnecessary time lingering somewhere between the vendor and the store sale floor creates a plethora of problems for retailers:

Lost sales,
Damages,
Shrink,
Storage costs,
Markdowns,
Inadequate execution of the merchandising plan, and
Corrupted supply chain data for future merchandising and other supply chain planning.

The items listed above certainly don't contribute to the usual retail enterprise objectives of increasing sales and reducing expenses to maximize profits. A best-in-class Vendor Compliance program enables retailers to gain control of their supply chains by providing accountability to vendors and other stakeholders, visibility into internal and external supply chain activities, and predictability for future supply chain performance.

Best-In-Class Vendor Compliance: Visibility in the Retail Supply Chain

Feature article by Kevin Harris, Senior Project Manager, Compliance Networks, LLC

For years retailers have tried a number of tactics to entice vendors to fulfill orders in accordance with purchase order, routing guide, and other agreements, in order to optimize retail merchandising plans. The traditional method for achieving vendor compliance is fairly heavy-handed. It is a simple, time-honored concept: "I, the retailer, do not trust you, the vendor, to act in my best interest, so I am going to punish you when you do not comply with the rules that I have laid forth for fulfillment of my purchase orders. That punishment will often take the form of money I will take away from your invoice payments, to cover the cost of correcting your failure." This method often creates moderate improvement in vendor performance. Some vendors respond to this approach, others do not.

Click here to read the rest of Kevin's article on vendor compliance and supply chain visibility

How Burlington Coat Factory Removed Trouble Shipments to Unclog Docks and Save Money

Leading retailers overcome supply chain challenges with vendor compliance

Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse Corporation, a U.S. department store retail chain offering high quality, designer merchandise, faced rising costs from noncompliant shipments to its distribution centers as the company continued to increase the number of its stores nationwide. Burlington recognized a need for an effective vendor compliance system to hold vendors accountable to its shipping requirements, cut costs, reduce shipment errors and improve the flow of merchandise through its supply chain operations.

Click here to learn more about Burlington Coat Factory's Vendor Compliance Optimization

Compliance Networks' customers featured in AMR Research Report

Leading retail supply chain experts weight in on vendor compliance

Compliance Networks' customers Pep Boys and Burlington Coat Factory were recently featured in an AMR Research Report titled, “Supplier Compliance Can Be Costly for Retail Suppliers”.

Click here to learn more about the AMR Research Report

Retail Compliance Management Solution - The Movie

Click here to view a brief movie about why retailers love rCMS

It still hasn't won any film festival awards, but it remains a great introduction to best-in-class vendor compliance solutions.

Click here to view the brief rCMS movie