Getting Started

E-commerce is a continually evolving environment where competitors are constantly emerging, customer expectations are continually rising, and supply chain execution is increasingly significant.

Q: How can I integrate e-commerce into my existing supply chain and make it profitable?

A: By gaining insight into critical performance drivers and developing actionable solutions.

SNAPSHOT is a quick, simple and valuable initiative that provides rapid, detailed analysis of key logistics functions.

SIMPLE – it can use a transactional data source of any format

QUICK – the process is efficiently completed in 4-8 weeks

VALUABLE – it has proven ability to impact your bottom line

During 4-8 weeks, SNAPSHOT will identify tangible and actionable cost-savings and improvement opportunities. This minimizes client time, effort and investment and demonstrates future analytics possibilities.

The Process

  1. DSS receives transactional data
    • Any electronic format accepted
    • One year’s data preferred
  2. Identify the Area of Focus
    • Discover the greatest need for expense reductions and performance visibility
    • Ex. D2C shipping, IB Freight, Freight Audit, 3PL Audit, Returns Shipping
  3. Generate tangible solutions via:
    • Client Operational Review
      • DSS gathers insight and information on key operational processes, constraints and ‘unknowns’ that impact the agreed-upon ‘area of focus’
    • A logistics-focused technology platform
      • DSS utilizes a web-based, business intelligence platform configured to support:
      • The extract, transform and load of various logistics data sources (ex. EDI, ERP, etc.)
      • Logistics-based data customization and advanced, multi-dimensional analyses
  4. Proven solution-generation experience
    • DSS leverages its knowledge and experience to turn DATA into DOLLARS

The Results

SNAPSHOT analysis results in two valuable deliverables:

  1. Expense ReductionA comprehensive list of operational improvement opportunities, including:
    • Supporting analysis results
    • Valuation and prioritization
    • Examples of operational improvements identified and valuated include:
  2. Performance VisibilityAn active business intelligence environment to support:
    • Review and validation of opportunities
    • Insight on key metrics (ex. Order/Shipment statistics)
    • Hands-on client use of the platform

Case Study

Background – A mass retailer with 1200+ stores and 5K+ vendors needed to improve expense reduction, cost recovery and direct-to-store delivery.

Challenges:

  • Parcel spending was increasing with more ‘just-in-tie’ and direct-to-store shipments
  • The 3PL was unable to support parcel rate audit
  • No ability to analyze or assess parcel cost or performance

The Solution:

SNAPSHOT analysis – cost recovery and operational improvement – of all parcel shipping over 18 month period

Results:

Immediate:

  • $1M+ in refunds on carrier billing errors
  • $4M+ in savings opportunities including shipment consolidation, zone-skipping and future negotiations

Sustained:

  • Performance monitoring and additional opportunity identification via BI visibility and analytics
  • Store-level cost assignment for DSD shipments

Impact Timeline

timeline