Technotape sees turnover quadruple whilst its inventory value remains stable

With over 3000 SKUs to manage, Technotape International faced increasing complexity as their assortment continued to grow. As a result, the company decided to implement Slimstock’s inventory management solution, Slim4.

With help from the inventory optimisation specialist, Technotape International are now better positioned to cope with the trends and peaks in customer demand. Because of this, the supplier reliability has been improved by 12%. Furthermore, the company has increased the turnover by 400% without increasing the inventory value.

Technotape International started out 30 years ago as a supplier to photo printing companies. However, with the growing popularity of digital cameras, the company was forced to adopt a new strategy. Today, the international wholesaler based in Baarn, the Netherlands, offers a large range of printing materials which are suitable for the so called sublimation printing technique.

Managing Director, Bonne Klein Woolthuis, goes on to explain: “our products can be found at big retailers, who use them to make photo gifts.” This change in strategy has been extremely successful and Technotape International is now one of the top three specialists wholesalers in Europe.

More responsive stock control

The new strategic direction has had a major impact on the logistics operations of the company. “Our articles are now far more sensitive to trends. Furthermore, given that the assortment has also doubled to 3,000 SKUs, maintaining control over our inventories using common sense and simple spreadsheets alone was becoming an impossible task. It was simply not possible to respond to sales trends in a timely manner,”
states Klein Woolthuis. With Slim4, Technotape International can anticipate developments in customer demand and thus manage the stock optimally.

Optimised orders for international shipments

As a result of the growing assortment, Technotape have been subjected to a considerable increase in delivery times. Whereas in the past, products were produced locally and tailor-made in in the Netherlands, a large proportion of the assortment is now shipped from the Far East. Among other things, Slim4 helps the wholesaler remain critical when determining the optimal time to place an order. “With the order generator in Slim4, we have a clear insight into the order moments for every supplier. We now add items to orders which would not have been ordered using a regular min/max-calculation”, explains Klein Woolthuis.

Four-fold turnover increase

Since implementing Slim4, delivery reliability at Technotape has increased by 12%. Highlighting how the business is now working hard to attain its goal of 98% service level of AA Items, the managing director explains: “We are focusing on the volatility of supplier lead time.”

Despite this, Technotape saw sales rise by as much as 400% without a significant increase in stock value. Klein Woolthuis concludes: “We would never have achieved these results without Slim4, we are convinced of that. In the future, we will open additional sales offices abroad. We expect this to increase sales by another 50 to 80% over the next two to three years.”