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Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Tips For Ensuring Distribution Network Optimization

By Christopher Brown


When you start a company, you most likely have a plan to expand and open other branches in a few years. However, the possibility of this happening will depend on how well you work on your distribution network optimization. Every few months, you should evaluate how the supply chain is working to see if you can make it even more effective and efficient. Here are some pointers on how to do this.

Before you start coming up with solutions, you need to know where the problem lies. Some people will send representatives to speak to the vendors who stock their products, while others will focus on the customers. Both options are viable, but you should combine them to get reliable data. When you continuously hold these surveys, you will be able to tell what the consumers like and dislike about your products.

Various things can be affecting your sales projections. However, before you even focus on pricing and marketing, you need to look at your market. You may be selling products to the wrong age group or in the wrong regions, and this could severely affect your numbers. Alternatively, the products might be the problem. To change this, you could try rebranding or change what you supply to that area.

You also have to look at your distributors. Sometimes, they might just not be cut out for this work, while in others, their marketing methods might be directly affecting the sales. First, you can try rotating them to see how they do in other regions. If this does not work, try shifting them to another department. This way, if you end up firing them, you will have exhausted all other avenues.

Before you make any decisions about the products or the market, you need to consult with other stakeholders, and this should be done from the beginning. This way, the decisions made will not be biased and will have been well deliberated. The stakeholders you consult should include representatives from every department.

In most cases, the process of strategizing and planning can take a couple of months, depending on the problems that were identified. Since the management might be pushing for instant results, you can divide the process into stages. This way, you can implement change in phases without having to make hurried decisions.

While coming up with your strategy, ensure you use the proper tools and software. This will speed up the process, and give you more accurate and reliable predictions. Additionally, you should consider getting some outside help. The person you hire should be experienced in handling this kind of situations and should be an unbiased contributor. To minimize your expenditure, you can use them to consult on the initial planning and then handle the implementation process yourselves.

To properly implement the changes you are envisioning you may need to put in some money. If you properly organize your plan, it will be easy to convince the investors to put up the required amount. You just need to ensure that you can show them how it will save the company, and allow you to increase the profits. However, ensure that you use actual figure and not faked projections because this could blow up in your face.




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