By Charles Pauka
Officeworks and GRA have developed new business’s planning functions, including significant improvements to processes and systems, integrated into GRA’s forecasting and planning software, GAINS, and its IT platforms.
With revenues of $1.5 billion and 150 stores, Officeworks is Australia’s biggest retailer and supplier of office products. Officeworks is Australia’s largest office supplies retailer, catering for households and businesses of every size with around 15,000 products across a range of departments. Officeworks provides customers with in store, online or phone shopping.
GRA partner Luke Tomkin said: “For a company like Officeworks, demand planning every product at every location uniquely equates to more than 1.8 million forecasts on a daily basis, no small feat. So it requires both sophisticated business processes and planning systems.
“Couple that with Officeworks’ customer service promise and multiple channels to market and you have a big challenge, but one that offers big rewards. What Officeworks has achieved will substantially improve the customer experience while reducing operating costs and excess inventory.
“Competitive pressures mean supply chains need to become increasingly responsive to customer needs, and enabling a bottom-up demand driven planning process is critical in achieving this,” he said
This article first appeared on TandLnews.com.au