Rapidly growing retail brand transforms inventory management to meet demands of major resell partners

 Overview

Our client’s third-party distribution vendor could not meet the sales order requirements of key resellers like Walmart and Target. Their revenue forecast depended on serving these new resale channels, requiring a solution to manage orders, inventory, and distribution at scale.

Client Description

High-growth retail startup selling breast pumps through a third-party manufacturer and distribution center, shipping to online customers, large retailers, and mom-and-pop stores. They were facing rapid growth over the last two years, and demand for their products was rising. The finance and operations teams were constantly challenged to keep up with order fulfillment and inventory management.

Problem

The company had grown so fast and had implemented “quick fixes” to meet the company requirements with aggressive deadlines. This resulted in their operations being managed through a series of third-party applications outside their ERP systems. The retail brand contacted Vindasius to support their finance and operations teams through their transition to a single, integrated system. We were asked to help identify project requirements and assist in the project management effort to get it done. 

Solution

We immediately identified a major issue with their ERP project—the item master had no owner. The new 3PL's main requirement was to integrate the item master with the third-party systems. The integration wouldn’t be a challenge, but the 3PL expected the ERP item master to be the source of truth for current inventory balances and all activity. This was far from reality and a significant roadblock to remediate.

Our team then did a deep dive to determine a critical path to get the ERP configured and working as the “source of truth” for all inventory transactions. This included:

• Inventory items overhaul with SKUs, weights, UOM, and categories 
• Inventory cost method conversion
• Enable Sales Order entry within the ERP with integration to Shopify
• Conversion of all SOPs around how orders are captured and inventory is distributed
• Purchasing process overhaul and workflow automation
• Enable and train several locations with third-party receiving
• Chart of Accounts and budgeting update for the new source of inventory reporting
• Updating of the master data warehouse to incorporate data from the ERP
• Update of inventory locations available and a full wall-to-wall physical

Outcome

Our client began working on the fixes immediately and did not waste valuable resources trying to solve anything but the elephant in the room. It took them one year and considerable executive turnover, but they are now well-positioned to scale internationally.

“I was new to the company and had worked with Cindy several times before and knew she could come in and expertly work her magic. She quickly understood the root cause of all the issues, whether system, process, or both, and then found the true source(s) and presented high-level solutions. Within a week, we had a strawman about the timeframe delay. All the while enthusiastically engaging with the team, encouraging them that change would make their jobs easier–what a blessing in a sh*tstorm.”