Collaboration as a Key to Success in Retail

White paper Collaboration as a Key to Success in Retail www.lascom.com - San Diego office +1 858 452 1300 - Paris office +33 1 69 35 12 20 - ©All right reserved Lascom 2014 Page 2 sur 28 Content Executive summary .................................................................................................................................................. 3 Reasons to improve collaboration with suppliers ........................................................................................ 5 Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) ..................................................................................................... 7 A collaborative “project room” ............................................................................................................................ 9 From complex and slow business processes… ........................................................................................ 10 …to a dynamic and organized structure ................................................................................................... 11 Better structure and information management ................................................................................. 11 The repository ................................................................................................................................................. 11 SRM business processes efficiency .................................................................................................................. 16 Request For Proposal management ........................................................................................................... 16 RFP efficiency .................................................................................................................................................. 18 Collaborative specification ............................................................................................................................. 19 Launch wrap-up .................................................................................................................................................. 20 Artwork collaboration .................................................................................................................................. 20 Merchandising & Sales Promotion ............................................................................................................. 20 Product information transfer to supply chain ......................................................................................... 22 Post launch business processes ........................................................................................................................ 23 Sanitary alerts ...................................................................................................................................................... 23 Audits...................................................................................................................................................................... 23 Change Management ....................................................................................................................................... 24 Consumer care .................................................................................................................................................... 24 A Global Solution .................................................................................................................................................... 25 Access anywhere ................................................................................................................................................ 25 Multi-langual ....................................................................................................................................................... 25 Multi-cultural ....................................................................................................................................................... 25 Multi-regulatory ................................................................................................................................................. 25 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................................. 26 References ................................................................................................................................................................. 27 Lascom ................................................................................................................................................................... 27 Lascom CPG solution ................................................................................................................................... 27 www.lascom.com - San Diego office +1 858 452 1300 - Paris office +33 1 69 35 12 20 - ©All right reserved Lascom 2014 Page 3 sur 28 Executive summary As consumers grow more demanding, retailers need to ensure products are available at the right time, through the right channel and at the right price. While it seems collaboration between retailers and suppliers has existed forever, it has become more essential for success. While today’s manufacturers and retailers are each facing significant but unique challenges, there is common goals that drives collaboration - higher sales, increased profitability, and stronger business growth. Indeed, an ECR-McKinsey survey shows that an effective collaboration between retailers and suppliers results in a cost reduction of 5.4%. and a 4.4% decrease in out-of-stocks. It also increases revenues by 3.7% more than the average company. Even if many industries have already fully understood the opportunity of an optimized collaboration, Retail is still in the early stages due to both traditional past behavior and a fear of sharing sensitive information. Indeed, the retailer-supplier relationship has long struggled with distrust from both parties acting in self-interest. Retailers and suppliers can overcome this challenge by better sharing information and truly collaborating to exceed customer expectations. At its most advanced level, they are all part of a shared system, jointly pursuing opportunities to improve margins and growth across the entire value chain to benefit the end-consumer through: NPD: Collaboration eases new product development from the marketing brief (retail) to production (supplier) all along R&D and quality processes. Request for proposal and tender selection: Through an effective bidding process, retailers are able to choose best suppliers for product. Time to market improvement: It no longer simply consists of a new product a retailer is offering but also to the retailers’ ability to adapt and adjust to the changing marketing world around them. Suppliers are fully part of this new process. Range and product optimization: To optimize existing formula with less costly alternative or trendy ingredients, retailers have to involve suppliers in their portfolio categorization. www.lascom.com - San Diego office +1 858 452 1300 - Paris office +33 1 69 35 12 20 - ©All right reserved Lascom 2014 Page 4 sur 28 New market access: Retailers must consider multi-language and localization (multi- regulatory) issues while setting up on a new marketplace. Collaborate with suppliers at this stage is essential to enter a new place in optimal condition. This document scopes the essential of an efficient supplier-retailer relationship, its advantages and how to manage it to improve growth, competivity and boost innovation. www.lascom.com - San Diego office +1 858 452 1300 - Paris office +33 1 69 35 12 20 - ©All right reserved Lascom 2014 Page 5 sur 28 Reasons to improve collaboration with suppliers To overcome today’s challenges, smart retailers are taking a more focused look at collaborating with their supplier, seeing them as partners. A successful retailer-supplier collaboration can help smooth pressures along the product lifecycle. A strong partnership brings products to market faster, reduce costs, increase sales and market share, while maximizing ROI for both parties. Main reasons to improve collaboration are: Revenue enhancement: Working jointly to harness complementary skills is key to better anticipate and react to commodities price volatility. It becomes a real challenge for food companies and retailers to ensure sustainable margins. Crops, dairy products, oils, chemicals, etc. have high influence on companies’ bottom line results. It is crucial to collaboratively work on quick adjustments to maintain high margins on both sides. Cost reduction: Collaboration reduces administrative tasks and improves communication. It also facilitate specifications sharing process through web collaboration both for initial specifications -used to create a new product from scratch- and updated specifications - it assumes an effective change management and a robust impact analysis. Market shares : Through innovation performances, collaboration also grows market shares and accelerates innovation providing: More disruptive ideas Better decision making process Greater success rates Fewer errors Reduced risks Innovation performances also includes time to market rush. Being successful with time to market is heavily dependent on a highly effective planning process and error-free execution in both organizations. www.lascom.com - San Diego office +1 858 452 1300 - Paris office +33 1 69 35 12 20 - ©All right reserved Lascom 2014 Page 6 sur 28 Process improvement: A wide range of supplier-related processes can be improved by more intense retailer– supplier relationships. Many retailers are eager for more quality and traceability and ask their suppliers to comply with up-to-date food standards. Processes include sourcing, product specifications, quality certifications, recalls, promotion planning, execution, and all the supply chain processes. Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) Private label products have existed throughout the history of retailing. In Europe, retailers such as Boots, Marks & Spenser, and Tesco have sold private label store brands for generations. During the recession in the early 1980s, generic ‘no name' brands were introduced in the U.S. as low-cost alternatives to national brands. During the late 1980s, private label growth was phenomenal, with grocery unit shares reaching over 15%. By that time, private labels products were following the rule “doing it on the cheap.” They were copycats of national brand products. But, private label quality has improved dramatically since the days of generic products. Several recent consumer reports studies have claimed that the quality gap between national brands and private label products has been reduced or eliminated. Accordingly, consumer perception has improved substantially, creating a highly positive attitude towards private label. In a recent survey by The Nielsen Company, 63% of consumers considered private label brands to be of equal quality to national brands, and 72% of the respondents felt that private label products were good alternatives to name brands. The traditional approach to developing low-cost, generic alternatives to national brands, targeting price-sensitive, brand-agnostic shoppers, is giving way to a much more strategic role for private label, as part of more thoughtful shopper segmentation, category management and assortment planning strategies. Brand manufacturers have historically been able to compete effectively by creating disruptive products and package designs. Nowadays, retailers’ contribution to NPD is more important than ever. Retailers are pushing continuous innovative products and their role shift to be fully part of – and often drive - product innovation. www.lascom.com - San Diego office +1 858 452 1300 - Paris office +33 1 69 35 12 20 - ©All right reserved Lascom 2014 Page 8 sur 28 Things have changed and ratio of power is more balanced, for the best of both parties. One way relationship has transformed to collaboration, installing trust for retailers and suppliers in a competitive market. The different stages of the private label history One way relationship “Me-too” private label - price- based - highest margin possible - low quality product Cooperation Price / performance ratio - maximize consumer value through information sharing - finer analysis on operational costs - higher concern in quality Partnership Differentiation - shared sales goals - maximize supplier value - exhaustive Product Lifecycle Management Collaboration Innovative products - suppliers and retailers are both integrated in competitiveness and success - common strategic goals - category management strategies www.lascom.com -San Diego office (1) 858 452 1300 - Paris office (33) 1 69 35 12 20 - ©All right reserved Lascom 2014 Page 9 sur 28 A collaborative “project room” During WW2, operations were managed from a “war room” encompassing skills and technology required to optimize operations. Implementing a collaborative tool/software to better manage their product portfolio, improve innovation processes, gain in productivity and benefit from their suppliers knowledge is a common concern for many retailers. Product management plays an integral role in the overall control and lifecycle of a product. The great breadth of retail also requires the ability to discern what is key to prioritize in terms of projects. This ability to streamline the management of any project is the hallmark to benefit from a quicker, more-efficient, and less-expensive project lifecycle. To better manage products and projects in retail, smooth and effective collaboration is crucial. Collaboration means develop, launch and monitor new and existing products through a coherent and structured process where every participant involved is able to find the right information whenever needed. Most of the issues related to poor efficiency are redundant tasks and multiple keying that slows the process and contribute to higher complexity. Processes are optimized through 2 pillars; first, structured data build a reliable repository, performing as a “single version of the truth”; second, well-organized stages such as RFP / bidding process, specifications consistency, control and effective change management considerably favor satisfactory product launch. www.lascom.com -San Diego office (1) 858 452 1300 - Paris office (33) 1 69 35 12 20 - ©All right reserved Lascom 2014 Page 10 sur 28 From complex and slow business processes… Many retailers do not benefit from a centralized platform gathering all data and documentation about products. It results in several issues: Large volume of paperwork and administrative tasks Each department uses siloed information while developing new products Data are not sharp enough to meet local/global regulation’s requirements Data are duplicated in many places throughout the lifecycle Repetitive processes are manual and error-prone Time to market is slow due to ineffective NPD processes Collaboration with suppliers is poor A complex and barely efficient vision - Participants have difficulties to access the right information at the right moment Risks due to a complex organization and poor collaboration lead to costly management. Obsolete information and non-compliance can result in a large volume of recalls. www.lascom.com -San Diego office (1) 858 452 1300 - Paris office (33) 1 69 35 12 20 - ©All right reserved Lascom 2014 Page 11 sur 28 …to a dynamic and organized structure To cope with unstructured discrepancies, sharing a common platform with suppliers and benefiting from a “single version of the truth” is key. Better structure and information management As product and specification management is tedious and risky (obsolete version, inappropriate dispatching, etc.), retailers are looking for a single centralized repository to gather structured data and documents all along the product lifecycle. The repository Retailers are concerned with an increasing volume of data due to range expansion and a harsher regulatory compliance. The solution is to benefit from a robust platform performing as a unique repository to offer a “single version of the truth” to all participants. Lascom CPG facilitates collaboration through clean document versioning and always accurate product data. Participants benefit from a customized access regarding their business roles and responsibilities – for instance suppliers can only access raw material they provide if defined as if. For most organizations, the product information repository stores a great deal of data, document, and any other type of information both from internal teams and extended business. Therefore, in order for company’s teams to effectively locate specific information about product or specifications it is equally important to retrieve them through a variety of search features. A single core repository makes product information management easier and specification management more efficient. Lascom repository also incorporates additional collaboration features such as creation wizard, mark-ups and reviews, alerts, electronic signatures, etc. www.lascom.com – U.S. office +1 858 452 1300 – Europe office +33 1 69 35 12 20 - ©All right reserved Lascom 2014 Page 12 sur 28 The repository organizes data such as: Product/Project information Description NEEDS These are raw material/packaging requirements and marketing briefs REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL Match and screening of multiple suppliers proposals and RFP requirements ARTICLES Articles are products and all their components: raw materials, packaging items, artworks, packing items, etc. NUTRIENTS Nutritional facts calculation are made from this library and used in the formulation tool INGREDIENTS These are references used to create ingredients lists - including preservatives- and package design. & MORE Claims (organic, kosher, suitable for vegans, etc.), allergens, geographical origins, etc. Quality Description QUALITY CONTROLS Quality control plan, batches, samples, results, certificate ANALYSES Allow to store all analyses results made upon raw material/supplier pairs with criteria attached. AUDITS Allow to monitor all criteriae matching IFC, BRC, ISO etc. requirements upon product/supplier. COMPLAINTS Allow to store all consumers’ complaints. Supplier information Description PARTNERS These are all information about partners. Partners could be suppliers, laboratories, customers, etc. CONTACTS These are all contacts partners are in touch with. www.lascom.com – U.S. office +1 858 452 1300 – Europe office +33 1 69 35 12 20 - ©All right reserved Lascom 2014 Page 13 sur 28 Documents Description FILES Many objects types can be stored in files. These files can be associated by themes. OTHER DOCUMENTS These are internal documents such as technical datasheets, reports, sales speeches, user instruction, etc. and external documents such as proofs for packaging prints, etc. They can involve direct change or be impacted by indirect changes throughout product lifecycle. EDMS (electronic document management system) will ensure a clean document versioning with role based access. Handling product specifications with document only cannot be achieved anymore. An effective way to deal with those specifications is not only to consider documents but also data themselves. From restricted data… Re-keying, re-approval of same documentation, waste of time, etc. are some of the drawbacks participants working in silos face. Collaboration supposes as well the intent to collaborate. In some cases, intellectual property and monopoly concerns are such that it is extremely tricky to collaborate properly. In these situations, individuals may encounter collaboration hurdles. …to collaborative data Implications on sharing a “single version of the truth” are: Sharing libraries of specification item Sharing their translation Assuming that changing the same content with multiple usages will require to manage all the impacts Retailers taking their suppliers’ knowledge into account and involving them as experts in their activity show better results. There is no longer a sole agent owning knowledge about products, goals, technical needs, strategy etc. The advantage of sharing a common platform is also to be aware of new raw materials and/or products through suppliers input and use them as opportunities. www.lascom.com – U.S. office +1 858 452 1300 – Europe office +33 1 69 35 12 20 - ©All right reserved Lascom 2014 Page 14 sur 28 Both retailers and suppliers have a common goal: the customer satisfaction. To achieve that goal, quantitative data sharing shall be set up and acknowledge business practices shall be organized. Restrictive data Collaborative data Information scattering Out-of-date documentation Waste of time Re-keying of data Multiple platforms and repositories with inconsistent information Inefficient tracking process and recording Inaccurate analyses Optimize retailers’ production cycle Increase data workflow efficiency between participants Track and version modifications Automate processes Rely on updated information Be aware of any change or any proposal input Monitor activity to improve innovation process Collaboration has to be efficiently secured. Access rights can be customized to improve collaboration by sharing needed information while remaining safe for both parts. A second level of efficiency in collaborative partnership deals with specialization of the business processes: Throughout segments Food and Beverage Appliances Textile Personal Care, etc. Throughout departments Marketing Sales Procurement Quality Logistic Finance, etc. www.lascom.com – U.S. office +1 858 452 1300 – Europe office +33 1 69 35 12 20 - ©All right reserved Lascom 2014 Page 15 sur 28 Through business roles: Suppliers Partners Laboratories Sub-contractors, etc. For all the participants such a structured information will: Be reusable Ease decision process Facilitate business monitoring Reinforce accountability and consistency To enhance the quality of the partnership, sharing a common understanding of the product data is beneficial for both parties but a second leverage opportunity is to act on the business flows efficiency as well. www.lascom.com – U.S. office +1 858 452 1300 – Europe office +33 1 69 35 12 20 - ©All right reserved Lascom 2014 Page 16 sur 28 SRM business processes efficiency Scorecarding & Gantt chart To streamline SRM business processes project screening is essential. Therefore, stage-gates have to be timely managed with Gantt charts while scorecarding will support priorization. Lascom CPG provides tools to structure tasks and dispatch them to the various stakeholders. Top management expectations are to monitor activities to spot potential issues and drill down into details to fix the problem. Request For Proposal management As seen previously, an RFP followed by a bidding process involves a lot of data such as marketing brief, pre-specifications, sample reviews, analyses, suppliers’ certificates, etc. As data are divided in elementary parts, it is easier to dispatch, generate or edit any kind of information within the workflows. An organized structure facilitates business reviews while remaining coordinated through workflow. They are also useful to capture metrics contributing to a proper RFP monitoring. Eventually, business process management supports massive parallel tasking to cope with multiple suppliers’ reactivity. Example for an RFP process www.lascom.com – U.S. office +1 858 452 1300 – Europe office +33 1 69 35 12 20 - ©All right reserved Lascom 2014 Page 17 sur 28 Requests for Proposal management are different from a company to another. But global process could be sum up through main stages as followed: • RFP templates creation • Definition of a workflow (stages, tasks etc.) • Brief approval Product scheme • Selection of a RFP template and fill up • Selection of a list of suppliers to send to • Answers gathering and classication Call for bids • Choice assistance in the best fit • Approval of 1 or 2 suppliers • Sample : specification, technical datasheet etc. • Collaboration through the platform Supplier shortlist • Specification approval • Supplier approval • Product addition in the repository Approval and manufacturing • Signature with the selected supplier • Documentation management Contract management R F P m a n a g e m e n t p o rt a l S p e ci fi ca ti o n s m a n a g e m e n t - RFP process automation - Tracked and managed workflows - Improved collaboration - Suppliers input - Workflows with suppliers automation - Alerts for return proposal regarding priority - Attached documents generation automation - Comments attachment www.lascom.com – U.S. office +1 858 452 1300 – Europe office +33 1 69 35 12 20 - ©All right reserved Lascom 2014 Page 18 sur 28 RFP efficiency Productivity in the innovation and quotation process will be highly increased dispatching automatically the technical data requirements to the various suppliers involved. But the business process has to be flexible enough to promote suppliers pro-activity as well. Various technologies to support RFP are crucial. A portal technology Optimizing RFP process and collaboration with suppliers often means benefiting from a portal with dedicated access to securely input information about proposals, quotation or product specifications. Tight seal front office to avoid information leaks from a supplier to another is key. A back office repository is also required for retailers to compare suppliers involved in the process. Digital RFP exchange RFP are sent to many suppliers. Each supplier can propose many products. Each product / supplier pair has its own documentation, specification dataset, certificates, etc. To avoid the pain to compare manually different bids, retailers require tools to: Screen and comment information easily Manage loopbacks with suppliers with a full audit trail Compare ( submission 1 VS submission 2 ; supplier bid 1 VS supplier bid 2) Approve individually business topics to unlock the overall approval. Lascom offers to check each chapter. Everyone in charge of a chapter/task is able to approve it separately considering skills needed. A final approval with electonic signature secures the entire process. www.lascom.com – U.S. office +1 858 452 1300 – Europe office +33 1 69 35 12 20 - ©All right reserved Lascom 2014 Page 19 sur 28 Suppliers certificate assessment Using the collaborative portal suppliers will upload various document required to testify their quality policies (ISO, BRC, organic, kosher, certificates, etc.). Electronic signature Electronic signature lawful status is key in accountability. Partners will approve product quality policy through validation processes. Electronic signature will ensure data integrity and partners commitment. Collaborative specification RFP goal is to select a supplier based on price and pre-specifications. Once the RFP is granted, technical specifications must be sharpened and approved both by the retailer and its choosen supplier. To be more efficient, departments must be able to work on many tasks at the same time without bothering or slowing down each other. By managing electronic specifications with chapters, businesses gain in effectiveness. GS1 developed a global standard, still in implementation, to syndicate practices. On the same frame, in Australia and New Zealand, the Product Information Form (PIF) is an operational standard. Indeed, thanks to a unique template shared by all the community business relations are faster between partners. It could someday become a new regulation out of Australia to improve product information and traceability. The PIF was a tool co- developed both by retailers and manufacturers to captured specification data with a better auditability to check regulatory requirements and product consistency. PIF avoids the potential confusion of having different forms for different sets of regulatory requirements. To ensure specification consistency, business process management is key as well. Participants have to work at the same time on different tasks. Specification contents are consolidated and approved without slowing down others. Raw material, ingredients and product information must remain attached to a finished product at any stage of the lifecycle and being accessible by anyone with the right to edit or update the products. As seen, Lascom ensures that product specifications are based on a “single version of the truth” characteristics library; as collaborative specification is an iterative process, Lascom CPG provides a full traceability of the various changes and submissions. www.lascom.com – U.S. office +1 858 452 1300 – Europe office +33 1 69 35 12 20 - ©All right reserved Lascom 2014 Page 20 sur 28 Launch wrap-up Artwork collaboration Product specification involves packaging specification too. Since packaging and artwork engage many functional disciplines within the company – while simultaneously engaging a large network of external partners – packaging and artwork management is a definitive collaboration bottleneck. Yet they face critical barriers to tackle in order to achieve effective packaging and artwork management, including: Lack of certainty and time about the finished product final definition. Packaging and artwork are often on the critical path of the launching process. Difficulties for designers, developers and production teams to collaborate efficiently. Indeed, business concerns are largely heterogeneous and iterations are short and plenty. Paper-based artwork review. For most companies, artwork review and approval are a lengthy process in which hard-copy drafts and proofs are circulating to internal groups and external agencies for review and comment. Defects and errors in pack copy and artwork are primary reasons for product recalls, costing companies millions of dollars in lost revenue. Lascom collaborative solution makes it possible to conduct virtual packaging reviews. Digital mark-ups can be directly added on the document. Reviewers are then able to approve or reject comments regarding their role. Electronic sign-off, good to print and a full version history ensure transparency and accountability throughout the process. As a result, participants can be sure that a complete and accurate print file is released to production. Merchandising & Sales Promotion Approximately 60% of all chocolate candy is sold on promotion. Even for such stable items as rice and peanut butter, approximately 30% of volume is sold on promotion. For seasonal items, such as stuffing mixes, 80% fourth calendar quarter sales are sold on promotion. Promotional spending now consumes 54% of retail marketing budgets and represents an average of 17.3% of gross sales in the U.S. The companies willing to fully leverage in-store opportunities will need to focus on merchandising and POS material. Product combinations and pricing strategies drive single category and cross-category sales. www.lascom.com – U.S. office +1 858 452 1300 – Europe office +33 1 69 35 12 20 - ©All right reserved Lascom 2014 Page 21 sur 28 Getting to market with promotional packaging and displays is challenging due to: The multiplicity of actors involved – including marketing, sales, finance, category management, communication agencies, legal, logistics and department supervisors. The assortment of references for a promotion. Retailers have to carefully consider their needs and bottom lines for a specific holiday – e.g. Mothers Day - while suppliers offer operations associated with volume. The assortment of pricing and promotional strategies – loyalty points, discounts, “buy one get one free”, etc. – Whole categories are impacted and retailers observe whole store effects. Some promotions can cannibalize sales or drive incremental traffic in store. Costs forecasts are then very complex to handle. The slow “stage gate” process composed by many tasks and organized through a schedule long time before the actual promotion. Best-in-class retailers are modifying their in-store promotional processes in collaboration with manufacturers to eliminate bottlenecks, enhance efficacy and ensure “just in time”. Lascom fuels retailers’ promotional strategies: dedicated promotion management business process is supported by the supplier portal. Sales campaign will be stage-gated on a weekly base. The tasks will be dispatched automatically to various sparticipants providing alerts if the dates are overdue. Every assigning will have a comprehensive dynamic calendar to monitor the critical path in a launch process. Lascom offers a supplier portal to improve reactivity on each task. Calendars are shared and collaboration enhanced. The system tracks, manages and optimizes the end-to-end process. The appropriate such as POS material drawings, attention to customer, catalogs, can be automatically generated, monitored and traced. Reporting and analytics are triggered to benchmark progress and evaluate the promotion for cost and timing targets. www.lascom.com -San Diego office (1) 858 452 1300 - Paris office (33) 1 69 35 12 20 - ©All right reserved Lascom 2014 Page 22 sur 28 Product information transfer to supply chain After approval, Lascom’s ETL (extract transform and load) will upload fully structured products data and documentation to the ERP back-office system. This save time and prevent errors associated with manual re-keying. www.lascom.com -San Diego office (1) 858 452 1300 - Paris office (33) 1 69 35 12 20 - ©All right reserved Lascom 2014 Page 23 sur 28 Post launch business processes Sanitary alerts Parties involved in a sanitary alert want it to be solved quickly through proficient impact management. Actors are usually retailers, manufacturers, point-of-sales, legal authorities and suppliers. 2 types of sanitary alerts are noticeable: “From field to shelves”; e.g. A contaminated batch is identified, it must be recalled. Specifications VS delivered products; e.g. FDA reports a sanitary alert on frozen blueberries from China due to water contamination, all products using this ingredient must be recalled. The platform grants advanced searches to retrieve suspected components and provides impact analysis on the related products/batches using them. Data collected are not only used in case of a sanitary alert, but also to support continuous improvement of the quality. Audits The retail industry faces an unprecedented level of scrutiny. Consumers are not just concerned about the safety and quality of products but also about the way in which they are produced. Audit programs require a thorough report. Whether they are set up by internal teams or third party agencies, visibility on IFS BRC aspects is still low and corrective actions plan to solve issues are not always implemented. Most information is on check list format, and emails. Retailers, auditors and suppliers waste considerable time to identify and to verify due dates all along the audit process. As information is time/date stamped and all results/corrective actions are electronically documented, retailers are able to gain in-depth access and insight into performance by various suppliers; and be audit ready-on demand for almost any type of compliance audit using the supplier portal though Lascom solution. www.lascom.com – U.S. office +1 858 452 1300 – Europe office +33 1 69 35 12 20 - ©All right reserved Lascom 2014 Page 24 sur 28 Change Management Businesses often need to amend their specifications. A crucial part of portfolio management in retail consists of adapting to an evolving environment. Through a change request, suppliers offer minimum disruption to retailers on product changes, while ensuring their marginal approval. It is also important to be able to track these changes and create reusable versions. Change management is also part of the solution to assist retailers dealing with change impacts and product versioning. Like trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube, every move on one side has an impact on another. To develop a new product or to substitute supplier requires many decisions to make with cascading impacts on labeling, formulations, regulatory claims, documentation, ingredient sourcing, safety, costs, and package sizing. A new formulation from the supplier side, for instance, often drives the need for new labeling. Knowing the full impact of each change is essential to bring about the best decisions and avoid costly mistakes. Lascom provide customizable alerts and change management features to better manage changes and impacts. Consumer care Consumers Complaints management When consumers send a complaint, they expect some follow-up and traceability. When retailers send consumers’ complaints to suppliers, they not only expect the problem solved but also it does not reproduce. To set up an action plan, consumers’ complaints shall be categorized according to type of issue, its criticity and its liability to reoccur to prioritize the HACCP correction. Once acquitted each consumer claim shall trigger highly automated workflows to alert various stakeholders, to capture potential related cost and support the tracking of the resolution. All participants should be informed of the work in progress - containment and preventive actions for instance - until the problem is actually closed. www.lascom.com -San Diego office (1) 858 452 1300 - Paris office (33) 1 69 35 12 20 - ©All right reserved Lascom 2014 Page 25 sur 28 A Global Solution Access anywhere Proper collaboration implies allowing people to share information electronically everywhere on earth, yet securely. Headquarters and subsidiaries must be able to access and input data and documents easily wherever they are, at any moment. Mobility is gaining ground. More and more people and businesses use smartphones and tablets to access information. Lascom solution provides a full-web solution with responsive design interface to users to access the software from anywhere on any device. This is particularly convenient while checking products in-store, meeting at the suppliers’ place or performing an audit for instance. Multi-langual Collaboration efficiency is crucial to avoid abusive translation costs. Lascom provides a translation management tool (especially for data, formulation and labeling) to ease collaboration between countries (including support of various alphabet types). Multi-cultural Some other specificities are often related to unit (imperial to metrics, °C to °F, etc.), currencies and date format management or local trends. Lascom provides the technology to keep the consistency of the product specifications even for extensive global sales operations. Multi-regulatory It could be extremely difficult to deal with various countries regulations when selling globally. Even if standards and certifications tend to be international (ISO, HACCP, OHSAS...) the majority of rules are still region specific – E.U. 1169/2011, FSMA etc. From the idea to shelves, regulatory must be supported by intensive collaboration. To face this complexity, Lascom proposes a master product specification and dedicated views with the localization of the regulated contents according to the countries. www.lascom.com -San Diego office (1) 858 452 1300 - Paris office (33) 1 69 35 12 20 - ©All right reserved Lascom 2014 Page 26 sur 28 Conclusion According to the consulting major AT Kearney, partners should aim for an advanced level of collaboration where it will seem as if they have merged to form a single entity. Then, out of their well cemented coalitions they will be able to enjoy a range of improvements: 10-15% jump in sales, 6-10% reduction in forecast errors, 40-60% acceleration in speed of launching new merchandise, or 20% fall in material costs. Effective supplier collaboration reduce costs, increase visibility, aid in optimizing brand and banner loyalty, improve marketing effectiveness, sales volume, inventory, and margins. This has led to an attempt in establishing strong supplier collaboration, sharing both overall business strategies and specific initiatives where suppliers are expected to play a pivotal role. Retailers have been taking the idea of suppliers collaboration a step further by ensuring real- time visibility and collaboration. Supplier collaboration has tremendous productivity and efficiency benefits by streamlining and automating the traditional paper-and-time-intensive activities associated with Proposal process, product information management, vendor performance, product development, promotion programs, rebates, customer insight and new product introductions. A repository significantly helps to benefit from a « single version of the truth » for both parties. It is easier to manage RFP, NPD, product portfolio management and traceability. Inputs can be made y retailers and suppliers regarding access rights. Alerts notify participants involved in the project of any changes and related impacts. Collaboration is better, the solution allows companies to improve innovation process and margins. www.lascom.com – U.S. office +1 858 452 1300 – Europe office +33 1 69 35 12 20 - ©All right reserved Lascom 2014 Page 27 sur 28 References Lascom Lascom has built its global success on developing and deploying comprehensive software solutions and services that manage the complex business processes and information associated with document, product, project, and configuration management. Based on the success of its configuration management technology (introduced in 1997) and its advanced workflow functionality (introduced in 2002), Lascom has evolved into a best-in- class provider of enterprise business process management solutions. As projects and products evolve, maintaining a coherent “single version of the truth” is critical to performing gap assessments and impact analysis, as well as making key business decisions in the most efficient and effective manner. Lascom PLM software suite uniquely organizes, manages, and inter-relates a wide range of project/product information. PLM is more than just software. Understanding the different market segments of the PLM solutions is a factor for success. Lascom has heavily invested in its workforce to transform its project managers into a team of experts that know about customer problems and best practices. By capitalizing on product/project information and simultaneously on market knowledge, Lascom PLM is the key tool to empower strategic visions. Lascom technology is used by over 200 large and medium-size organizations around the globe such as Monin, Artenay Cereals, Maple Lodge, Yoplait, Lactalis, Servair and others. Lascom CPG solution Fully aware of issues in the retail sector, Lascom assists professionnals providing a solution to better collaborate. Companies are able to centralize information, data, documentation etc. on a unique platform. Information is updated in real time, reliable and structured to improve product lifecycle management. Through the supplier portal, retailers benefit from a collaborative space to exchange with suppliers. Retailers add RFP and specifications on the module, easing the NPD process. Suppliers are involved in retailers’ activity, information is better controlled and tracked. Lascom CPG is helpful to: Create, manage, centralize roduct information Optimize internal and external communication Automatically generate documentation such as technical datasheets, RFP, specifications Initiate the bidding process Reduce time to market www.lascom.com – U.S. office +1 858 452 1300 – Europe office +33 1 69 35 12 20 - ©All right reserved Lascom 2014 Page 28 sur 28 Benefit from a full traceability and advanced search functions Facilitate score carding and agenda organization through tasks and actions Manage risks and claims To learn more about our solution, visit our website www.lascom.com or contact our experts