Article

Are Microsoft Dynamics ERP Users Ready for Retail's New World of Leveraging Downstream Data?

by Bridget McCrea
Contributing Writer,

Downstream data is becoming an important tool for companies looking to maintain a competitive foothold in industries where achieving balance between out-of-stocks and surplus inventories remains a critical supply chain initiative. Retail, in particular, is one segment that's caught onto the value of downstream data, which includes information like point of sale (POS) data, customer orders, and order forecasts, among other data points.

In a recent Logistics Viewpoints blog, The Value in Leveraged Downstream Data, Steve Banker, director of supply chain solutions for ARC Advisory Group in Boston, discussed the CSCMP Annual Conference, where he attended a supply chain presentation by Ron Volpe, Customer VP - Supply Chain at Kraft Foods, and Jon Golovin, CEO of Retail Solutions Inc.

According to Banker, Kraft is taking an inventory management approach focused on downstream data.  His observations on the presentation included the following:  

A few years ago, not all retailers were willing to share downstream data. Some actually charged manufacturers for it! Today, according to Jon, every major retailer in North America, except for Publix, is willing to share downstream data, or is at least piloting the value of sharing it. Nevertheless, the quality of the data, and the amount of data categories shared, is usually not at the same level as the data provided by Target and Walmart.

Jon described the maturity phases we have gone through to better leverage demand signal data. In the first generation, Walmart and Target built massive data warehouses that contained information about a manufacturer's sales by store and SKU, as well as their inventory (at the SKU level) at both the retail store and warehouse levels, and other sets of data that allowed consumer packaged goods (...

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About Bridget McCrea

Bridget McCrea covers business and technology topics for various publications. She can be reached at bridgetmc@earthlink.net.

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