Dennys Brands tailors its supply chain to manage future growth

As a business that was first established in the late 1800s, Dennys Brands has evolved from a single store in the heart of London into a truly global business. To help modernise its supply chain and underpin future growth, the uniform specialists turned to Slimstock.

As a Royal Warrant holder, Dennys Brands are trusted by the household of the royal family as well as thousands of hotel and retail customers worldwide. Committed to offering its customers the best possible level of service, Carolyn Ramage, Finance Director at Dennys Brands explains: “To deliver an exceptional customer experience, we must continually innovate the way our business operates. Given the importance of the supply chain in satisfying the needs of our customers, this is a key focus area for our team.”

Automated inventory managment

As the business grew in both size and complexity, the planning team came under increasing pressure to keep the inventory under control. “In the past, the planning of our assortment was a highly manual undertaking. As a consequence, we simply did not have the time to investigate anomalies.”

To automate inventory management and develop more robust internal operations, Carolyn and her team identified the need for a powerful inventory optimisation solution that could help the business to take control of its inventory. For this reason, the apparel specialist took the strategic decision to implement Slimstock’s advanced inventory optimisation tool, Slim4.

7% increase in availability

Following the successful implementation of Slim4, Denny’s Brands have already seen a positive impact. Carolyn explains: “Slim4 has enabled us to bring more structure to the way we manage our inventory. As a result, in the few short months that we have been using the tool, our product availability has already increased by 7%.”

Along with achieving their availability targets, the planning team at Dennys Brands have also made huge strides forward in terms of efficiency. “We no longer spend time reacting to problems. Instead, our people can focus on tasks that truly add value. Ultimately, Slim4 has put us in a much better position to keep inventory in check while we use the time-savings to pursue new initiates.”

Forecasts the business can trust

Given the seasonal nature of fashion and apparel products, accurately anticipating future demand was also a major challenge for the planning team. “Before we could place any orders, we had to manually create forecasts for every product. With over 3000 active SKUs, this was a hugely time-consuming task,” adds Carolyn.

With Slim4 in place, Dennys Brands now have a flexible solution to build robust forecasts: “Thanks to Slim4, our seasonal forecasts are calculated and applied automatically. As a result, we have seen a huge improvement in forecast accuracy and we now have access to forecasts we can trust.”

Furthermore, with the management by exception basis of Slim4, the planning team can now work more proactively to mitigate potential issues before they have an impact on the business. “For slow-moving items at the extremes of the size curve, for example, Slim4 notifies our users when there is a potential inventory issue. This, in turn, allows our planners to focus their attention on these products. Using the data available, we can then make an informed decision on the best course of action.”

Maintaining a 5-star service

Anticipating strong growth in 2020 and beyond, Carolyn and the team have managed to drive availability improvements across their assortment while keeping inventory costs under control. However, as a business that is truly customer-focused, improving service levels and availability on A-line items remains a top priority.

Satisfied with the results so far, the Finance Director concludes: “We are now on the right path to achieve further improvements. With Slimstock as our strategic partners for inventory management, I have no doubt we will unlock new opportunities to optimise our business.”