Strategic purchasing
In addition to optimising the efficiency of the planning team, Supreme Imports can now also make more informed decisions around purchasing: “When it comes to making forward buying decisions, we can analyse the data and use this insight to gain a much better understanding of the potential impact on our inventory.”
Furthermore, with the order fill functionality within Slim4, the business has achieved some considerable reductions in logistics costs. Jonathan explains: “With Slim4, we can order to fill a complete container with the items we really need. This means we maximise the container space available without leaving the business exposed to unnecessary excess.”
Given that many of Supreme Imports’ suppliers offer rebates for buying a certain level of stock, the insight provided by Slim4 has also been hugely beneficial in helping Jonathan and his team weigh up the cost-price benefit of ordering additional stock. “Not only can we ensure that we are ordering the right items, we can also take into account the costs associated to holding additional stock in order to determine whether a rebate is really financially advantageous for the business.”
Satisfied with the results, Jonathan explains: “When you consider that the availability for our top 1000 lines is now in excess of 99%, the results of Slim4 speak for themselves.” With the growth of the business now under complete control, Jonathan and his team are working hard to achieve further efficiency improvements.