Wholesale Distribution
The wholesale supply and distribution industry provides goods to retailers, commercial and institutional users, and other wholesalers. Organizations can operate as merchant wholesalers which take ownership of the product and then resell it, as agents or as sales branches for manufacturers. Changes in the economy and consumer confidence greatly affect the wholesale industry. The business environment is changing and so must the industry. The external customer demand and strategic moves of innovative wholesale distributors will steer this industry away from the traditional operations. Consequently, this has resulted in a move towards wholesalers taking a more active role in supply chain management and technical support. This has resulted in national wholesale operations which has encouraged industry consolidation. By expanding its service offerings, it provides an important link in the supply chain. Thus the industry can grow and meet the demands of the economic climate.
Industry Challenges
- Reduce inventory while maintaining customer service levels
- Manage inventory of a large number of product lines
- Improve speed and accuracy of processing and dispatching customer orders
- Coordinate order and distribution operations to minimize supply chain disruption
- Integrate eCommerce systems with ERP systems to improve efficiency and order turnaround time
- Improve electronic collaboration with distributors and customers
- Enable on-line ordering and configuration
- Manage customer relationships with a wide variety of customer types
- Reduce lead times
- Manage inventories in multiple distribution warehouses
- Manage order backlog
- Plan and manage distribution and goods in transit
- Improve forecast accuracy
- Manage cash flow
- Improve efficiency and accuracy of picking and packing operations
- Minimize obsolescence
- Optimize delivery loads and minimize transport costs
- Comply with safety regulations for transporting hazardous goods
- Reconcile customer deliveries to contracts
- Reduce the number of product returns
- Manage distribution fleets and delivery contractors
- Integrate IT systems with GPS tracking systems on fleets
How BTP and SYSPRO Can Help
Forecasting
The SYSPRO Forecast Module is a systematic method which uses historic demand to predict future sales. It uses a set of well tested and understood mathematical algorithms:
- Mean
- Median
- Moving average
- Exponential smoothing with trends
- Six Period weighted average
- Annual seasonal profiles - unsmoothed
- Holt-Winters additive
- Holt-Winters multiplicative
The forecast can be manually edited, where required, taking cognizance of market intelligence and thereby improving accuracy and accommodating unusual demand. Thus organizations are able, through exception processes, to identify stocking items by location which require manual correction.
Trade Promotions Management
The SYSPRO Trade Promotions module enable consumer goods manufacturers and distributors to manage and control various company-specific rules concerning pricing, promotions, special offers, rebates, etc, when supplying the market through brokers and retailers. The module enables the easy processing of any promotions that are available to a customer, and any deductions they may take.
Inventory Control
The Inventory Control module forms the core of the accounting, distribution and manufacturing facilities. It is designed to integrate with all the major functions of the systems and to provide timely and flexible reporting on inventory holdings. Features include multiple warehouses and bin numbers, multiple costing methods, a full Kardex facility, a stock take system and extensive reporting.
Requirements Planning
The Requirements Planning module is the focus of the manufacturing and material resource planning system. The objective of requirements planning is to create realistic purchasing and production schedules, optimize stock holdings and identify capacity constraints in a multi-site, multi-warehouse environment. The module assists with the planning of materials and production capacity required to meet demand and identifies levels of usage of critical resources for rough-cut capacity planning. It allows for the easy creation of build schedules from Master Production Schedule (MPS) suggestions and the shop floor, and it suggests purchasing, production and transfer schedules to satisfy demand.
Purchase Order
The SYSPRO Purchase Order module enables you to monitor the quality, accuracy, lead times and costs of purchases, while providing comprehensive supplier performance analysis
The Purchase Order module provides:
- Detailed screen queries, including graphical purchase order commitment
- The ability to choose inventory cost, last price paid or contract pricing when creating orders
- Analysis of vendor performance for delivery times, quoted prices and quality specifications
- Goods Received Note (GRN) suspense facilities for accounts payable invoice matching and variance posting and reporting
- Streamlined purchase requisitioning and authorization processes
- Automatic purchase requisitioning via linked customer orders
- The option to fax or email purchase order documents when used with the Office Automation module
- Free-format stationery setup for local and foreign purchase orders, requisitions and blanket contracts
Product Configurator
The SYSPRO Product Configurator enables manufacturers to differentiate their product offerings through the ready customization of product to meet customer specifications. The Product Configurator module provides a rules-based configurator that will primarily help companies efficiently process products that are manufactured-to-order, assembled-to-order or sold in many configurations. It can also help reduce configuration errors, while reducing the involvement of experts in routine transactions.
Customer Relationship Management
The SYSPRO Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system lets users track and manage all customer and supplier touch points. Customer correspondence, status, vendor relationships, marketing campaigns, service issues, product returns, warranty and repair histories, quote and sales order information are monitored and recorded, providing a 360 degree view of internal or external business relationships. SYSPRO CRM enables sales, marketing and customer support operations to work collaboratively to achieve total customer satisfaction.
Blanket Sales Orders and Releases
The SYSPRO Blanket Sales Orders and Releases module provides an effective method of setting up, tracking and reconciling Release System contracts and releases between Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM's) and their customers/
It enables the easy capture or import of a new release and provides the necessary tools to manipulate the release and advise the customer of what has been accepted or changed and why. It enables updating of existing scheduled orders automatically, and provides an audit trail of deliveries so that disputes over quantities supplied to date can be resolved. It also enables the various tasks to be split up so that the appropriate level of staff can be employed for each function.
Return Merchandise Authorization
The SYSPRO Returns Management Authorization (RMA) module is designed to assist you in managing the return or exchange of products from your customers. Once the customer notifies you of the intent to return a product, you can issue an RMA with the applicable reason for the return and/or invoice numbers that pertain to that product.
Counter Sales
The Counter Sales function within SYSPRO is used to sell stock directly to a customer. Stock allocation and payment is immediate, where the payment can be cash, credit card or on account. Deposits can be entered and applied as payments at a later date.
Lot Traceability
The SYSPRO Lot Traceability module is designed to provide full traceability at transactional level for items which could cause loss of life or limb if conformance to quality standards is not adhered to. This enables you to maximize quality control through the tracking and replacement of any defective materials and manage product recalls efficiently and effectively. You can choose between numeric or alphanumeric lot numbering and if numeric, whether the numbers must be assigned manually or automatically.
Landed Cost Tracking
The SYSPRO Landed Cost Tracking module is designed to assist you in the tracking of imported goods, the establishment of an ETA and the establishment of a reliable estimate of the overall cost of imported goods. It also aids the calculation of a more accurate actual cost at which to receive the goods. It provides an actual cost comparison to the various estimates made during the procurement cycle and enables the archiving of completed shipments and associated costs.
SYSPRO Analytics
SYSPRO Analytics provides the tools to help you gain multidimensional insight into your organization enabling you to make accurate strategic management decisions. It facilitates quick and easy access to the information you need to make decisions that impact your customers, sales,
SYSPRO Reporting Services
SYSPRO Reporting Services is the next generation reporting tool that forms part of the SYSPRO Enterprise Reporting suite. It incorporates an embedded version of Crystal Reports XI to provide a single, cost-effective solution that simplifies operational effectiveness. You would use SYSPRO Reporting Services to design custom reports to virtually any level of complexity, complete with tailored reporting options, preferences and layout features such as graphs.
SYSPRO e.net solutions
SYSPRO e.net solutions enables you to extend beyond your enterprise using the SYSPRO open interface. SYSPRO e.net solutions provides you with the technologies to:
- Utilize SYSPRO as a development platform for creating custom business applications based on existing business logic
- Integrate SYSPRO with disparate business systems, both internal and external to your organization
SYSPRO e.net solutions provide:
- A suite of web-based applications written in ASP.NET
- Powerful business logic component architecture for rapid application development
- COM or Web Service based Application Programming Interface
- An XML-based framework for standard data interchange format
- Document Flow Management for intelligent document routing with dynamic transformation
With SYSPRO e.net solutions, you can:
- Integrate SYSPRO and existing enterprise applications both internal and external to your business
- Support business application and process collaboration within your business eco system using Service Orientated Architecture (SOA)
- Implement the backbone architectures to support Demand Driven Supply Networks (DDSN)
- Provide information access and delivery using any Internet, cellular or wireless transport technology
- Leverage the power and flexibility of Internet and mobile technologies for competitive advantage and cost savings
- Utilize SYSPRO business logic as a platform for rapid development of generic or proprietary business applications
- Automate the flow of business processes between disparate enterprise applications and support systems
Document Flow Manager
Business-to-business is about sharing data between trading partners. For example, a sales order arriving via e-mail into your back office system may prompt a request to purchase goods from your supplier. Thus, you have a sales order document coming in and a purchase order document going out.
The Document Flow Manager (DFM) enables SYSPRO customers to exchange documents, such as sales orders and purchase orders, more easily than ever before: it forms a key part of collaborative commerce. The Document Flow Manager enables you to automate the document flow because documents can be retrieved automatically and instantly as they arrive electronically at a company.
The Document Flow Manager provides a powerful way of automating your business processes. Incoming documents that are defined using XML data can be tracked and posted directly into SYSPRO. Documents can be transformed from one format to another either using the Document Flow Manager itself, or more sophisticated products such as BizTalk.
- Documents are automatically and instantly retrieved when they arrive electronically
- Documents are automatically routed and processed
- DFM can automate any of the available SYSPRO business objects. For example, you can set up an automated response via e-mail to request for inventory information
- XML documents are copied to 'failed' or 'processed' folders
- XML documents can be translated using an XSLT translator
- Email notification can be sent to the originator or processed and/or failed documents
Quotations
The Quotations module enables the entry and maintenance of quotations, the printing of free-format quotations and, upon confirmation of the quote by the client, the confirmation of the details into Work in Progress, Sales Orders and Requisitions/Purchase Orders.