www.spscommerce.com/retailer

Boosting Profits Through Supply Chain Integration

Best Practices for Retailers, Grocers and Distributors

Boosting Profits ThroughSupply Chain Integration

Increase sales and profits with supply chain insight ..1

Reduce inventory, improve sell-through .....................2

Forge supplier partnerships ..........................................3

Overcome visibility roadblocks .....................................4

Prevent out-of-stock and overstock conditions ...........5

Measure and improve vendor performance ................6

Gain real-time insight ....................................................7

Adopt a standard platform ...........................................8

Leverage external experts .............................................9

Ensure supplier adoption ............................................10

Integrate all trading partners .....................................11

Free your internal resources .......................................12

Join other industry leaders .........................................13

Connect with SPS Commerce ......................................14 This e-book is published by SPS Commerce, a leading provider of supply chain solutions for retailers, grocers and distributors. Find more resources at spscommerce.com/retailer.

© 2012 SPS Commerce

1 Boosting Profits Through Supply Chain Integration

Retailers can drive higher sales and profits

by gaining insight into their order performance.

You need to know:

• what products sell best

• which suppliers deliver on time

• which suppliers meet your order performance

requirements

With this information, you can make decisions that can

directly affect your profitability.

Gaining visibility into your suppliers’ performance can be

a daunting task. Do you have the right tools?

Increase sales and profits with supply chain insight.

2 Boosting Profits Through Supply Chain Integration

Deeper knowledge of order performance

allows retailers to maintain lower stock levels

with higher sell-through rates.

With near real-time knowledge of your order performance,

you can confidently promote your best-selling products and

reduce your inventory commitments at the same time.

You can maximize product turns and increase overall

sell-through by expertly managing your inventory.

Are your suppliers helping you meet your goals?

Reduce inventory, improve sell-through.

“ A 5% improvement in on-time delivery and

fill rates reduces inventory by over 2%.”* Source: CPFR co-chair

3 Boosting Profits Through Supply Chain Integration

By partnering with their supplier community,

retailers can learn what products are selling,

where they can get more inventory and

how vendors are performing.

The more you know about your suppliers’ plans, capabilities

and products, the more closely you can collaborate and

make the most of your combined assets.

Collaborating with your suppliers to share order

performance data enables both parties to become more

profitable while continuing to meet the needs of the end

customer.

Forge supplier partnerships.

4 Boosting Profits Through Supply Chain Integration

Retailers know they can use order performance data to drive inventory decisions, but often lack the time and tools to make

sense of the information.

You have so much sales and inventory data. How can you identify and understand the critical trends? SPS Commerce’s services help retailers and their suppliers turn supply chain data into actionable information.

Overcome visibility roadblocks.

Gain insight into key performance trends

such as ship timeliness, fill rate and PO

acknowledgement timeliness.

5 Boosting Profits Through Supply Chain Integration

Real-time order performance visibility allows

retailers to avoid out-of-stock and overstock

situations by monitoring their vendors’

history and current shipments.

Enhanced supply chain visibility lets you dramatically

reduce inventory without risking out-of-stock conditions.

Prevent out-of-stock and overstock conditions.

By identifying trends in key supply chain metrics,

you can prevent issues that may impact

your inventory.

6 Boosting Profits Through Supply Chain Integration

Retailers can identify top performing vendors

and those inhibiting their sales through poor

supply chain performance.

With insight into your order performance, you can focus on deepening your relationships with your most reliable vendors. You can also identify suppliers that are not meeting your requirements and work with them to improve their performance.

Measure and improve vendor performance.

7 Boosting Profits Through Supply Chain Integration

Having up-to-the minute knowledge of

what is selling, what products are on the way,

and who can be relied upon to deliver allows

the retailer to sell more and improve profits.

SPS Commerce brings you all your order performance data

together in near real-time. You get the detailed information

you need, when you need it, to make accurate decisions.

Gain real-time insight.

8 Boosting Profits Through Supply Chain Integration

Using a common platform that is already in

use by thousands of suppliers increases and

speeds adoption rates.

When you partner with SPS Commerce, you benefit from

our experience helping thousands of suppliers, retailers

and other trading partners improve integration and

collaboration.

Adopt a standard platform.

“ More than 45,000 customers in

40 countries trust supply chain

management solutions

from SPS Commerce.”

9 Boosting Profits Through Supply Chain Integration

SPS Commerce has an army of professionals

skilled in the needs of retailers and the tools

to make the information actionable.

Take advantage of the experts who understand supply

chain complexity and have the technology and expertise to

help. They can guide your company through implementing

a best-practices approach with your suppliers that will

optimize adoption and deliver higher profitability.

Leverage external experts.

SPS’ team of more than 600 supply chain experts helps you maximize adoption and minimize disruption for you and your vendors.

10 Boosting Profits Through Supply Chain Integration

Ensuring widespread adoption among

suppliers is time-consuming and expensive;

few retailers achieve it on their own.

You may have the clout to convince your supplier

community to use your choice of tools. But chances are,

your vendors are using multiple tools to meet their other

trading partners’ requirements.

With SPS Commerce, your suppliers gain immediate access

to more than 1,500 pre-built connections to retailers,

grocers and distributors. This gives your vendors access

to a solution they can use with all their retail partners,

dramatically improving supplier adoption.

Ensure supplier adoption.

Faster enablement of your suppliers saves you both time and money.

11 Boosting Profits Through Supply Chain Integration

SPS’ team of experts can bring all the

pieces together because they understand

the retailers’ and suppliers’ needs

and

they have the information platform

that delivers visibility across the

entire trading community.

SPS Commerce works with both retailers and

suppliers to implement solutions and

processes that work for both parties.

Because SPS understands the suppliers’

perspective, we can help build true

working partnerships.

Integrate all trading partners.

12 Boosting Profits Through Supply Chain Integration

Bringing the pieces and players together

can be accomplished easily and quickly with

few or no resources from the retailer.

SPS Commerce focuses on managing your vendor

onboarding and integration initiatives, so you can

focus on running your business.

Free your internal resources.

SPS Commerce delivers:

• An expert team of more than 600 employees focused on outsourced supply chain integration.

• Proven best practices for maximizing vendor adoption.

• Analytic dashboards to measure and improve vendor compliance.

13 Boosting Profits Through Supply Chain Integration

Retailers using the SPS platform are

industry leaders who are able to beat their

competition and lower their costs.

Competition is high, and margins are small. Retailers using

SPS’ platform to make better decisions about products,

suppliers and their overall supply chain, have better sell-

through rates, fewer stock-outs and higher margins.

Join other industry leaders.

14 Boosting Profits Through Supply Chain Integration

Learn more at www.spscommerce.com/retailer

where you can:

• Watch a 1-minute video overview about our services.

• Find resources for retailers, grocers and distributors.

• Learn about the latest news and trends

impacting the retail supply chain in our

Retail Connection blog.

Connect with SPS Commerce to enhance your sales and profits.

www.spscommerce.com/retailer