Insights

Understanding if you have a pricing problem When we engage with retail prospects for our services, the first thing I usually ask is, “Are you setting prices in a spreadsheet?”  If the answer is yes, likely you are experiencing challenges with your ERP or Host Merchandising system that were insurmountable and lead you to externalizing...

Navigating a Pricing Project If you’ve done your homework and are confident you have a pricing opportunity, it’s time to start thinking about a project.  Depending on what you’re doing, the project could be extensive or it could be a quick hit.  We’ll cover scoping the project in the next articles, but first some things...

Centralized pricing service In our consulting practice, we speak to many different retailers about their pricing needs.  Recently, the requests we have fielded are trending towards what I would term a centralized pricing service.  For many years across all industries the trend has been towards specialized services and we seem to have hit that point...

The Need for Better Pricing One of our customers eloquently said “If it ain’t broke, fix it anyway.”  She was talking about pricing.  She had inherited a pricing process from a former colleague that had to leave suddenly and had to get up to speed quickly.  The process worked, but it was terribly inefficient and...

As discussed in previous articles, Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) is a critical process for aligning supply chain operations with business goals. Many companies rely on third party S&OP solutions like Blue Yonder, Kinaxis, or o9 Solutions. However, as data pipeline tools become simpler to build and use, organizations may benefit from a custom-built approach....

Contrasting BlueYonder, Kinaxis, and o9 Solutions for Replenishment Planning Software Selecting the right software for replenishment planning can significantly impact a company’s supply chain efficiency, cost management, and customer satisfaction. At K3, we focus on 3 leading software providers—BlueYonder, Kinaxis, and o9 Solutions.  Here we will contrast their unique approaches and algorithms to handle various...

Key Topics Checklist To ensure a successful replenishment planning project, it's essential to address several critical topics before starting the implementation during the scoping phase. This is the process we use at K3 to drill into details that will drive an implementation.  Each section below provides a brief description and a list of key points...

Case Study: Replenishment Planning for a Distributor with a Complex Network In this case study, we explore how we helped a distributor that manages extensive inventory across a vast network improve their replenishment planning process. While the company was good at filling orders, they knew there was a better approach that could fill orders quicker,...