FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Multichannel Retailer USI Inc. Selects Taurus Software’s Manage Metrix for Proactive Business Performance Management

Redwood City, Calif. – Taurus Software, a premier provider of data warehousing and business intelligence solutions for multichannel retailers, announced today that USI Inc., a leading supplier of lamination equipment and office accessories, has decided to implement Taurus Software and F. Curtis Barry & Company’s Manage Metrix solution in their strategic environment. An Ecometry client, USI is excited about the combination of Taurus’ retail industry expertise and F. Curtis Barry & Company’s knowledge of best business practices coming together in a unique business performance management solution. USI and Taurus will be working together on streamlining business efficiencies in the Inventory department, where USI’s goals are balancing inventory, reducing backorders, and maximizing customer satisfaction.

USI selected Manage Metrix because of several factors, including the dynamic Taurus/FCBCO partnership, the solution’s valuable functionality, and the long-standing relationship that USI and Taurus have enjoyed throughout the years of Taurus developing specialized solutions for Ecometry customers.

“Over the years, we have been working with multiple Taurus Software solutions,” states Peter Frega, Director of Operations at USI. “We have been completely satisfied with their valuable products, ease of use, and superb functionality. Even still, we are more excited about implementing Manage Metrix since we have never seen anything quite like this.”

USI will be monitoring their Inventory pulse by using the Manage Metrix Inventory analytics, which yield insight on how to reduce Pick/Pack/Ship costs, free up dollars in unproductive inventory, minimize backorders and lost customers, ensure Purchase Orders are only being issued for needed products, and automatically prioritize the most productive and valuable tasks. In addition, the consultants at F. Curtis Barry & Company will be working closely with USI to establish best business practices. Key performance indicators (KPIs) illustrate what areas in Inventory are excelling and proactively alert Executives and Managers to possible areas of concern.

“Managing inventory is so important because it’s one of the largest assets we have,” says Peter Frega. “Inventory impacts our other departments as well as our customers, and managing inventory is a challenge since inventory levels change hourly. We used to spend 80% of our time generating reports, and 20% of our time strategizing. With Manage Metrix, we expect to spend 20% of our time generating reports, and 80% of our time strategizing.”

–

 About Taurus Software
�
At Taurus Software, “making data liquid” means helping turn data into business intelligence, smart decisions, and competitive advantages – the lifeblood of your company. Taurus products include a variety of applications developed to help clients get more from their data by allowing them to Move, Map, Measure, and Manage data regardless of where it resides within business systems. To learn more about Taurus Software and our offerings designed for various data platforms and applications, call 650-482-2022 ext. 1, or visit http://www.taurus.com.

For more information
�
Zaki Hussain, Taurus Software Media Contact
Phone: 650-482-2022, ext. 407
Fax: 650-482-2010
zaki@taurus.com

Description:

* Are you able to plan thoroughly and in advance for the upcoming cycle?
* Are you in your post-mortems able to understand what factors contributed to a product being a winner or a loser?
* Do you have visibility into products that are not profitable?
* Have you decided what to do with items that are not moving?

A successful Merchandising strategy requires proper planning and visibility into key areas of your business. Our Merchandising Metrix Webinar will highlight utilizing a combination of performance management and industry best practices, showing managers and executives a deeper overview of the Merchandising department!

In this exciting 30-minute webinar, Taurus will provide examples of challenges businesses face, key metrics that companies need to measure, and visual examples of HOW these critical metrics are measured.

Items to cover:
- Determining how the merchandise mix is performing
- How to effectively pick winners
- Replacing under-performing items
- Building the brand from the product mix perspective

Analytics that determine:
- Item profitability
- Channel profitability
- Price range profit/loss analysis
- Performance vs. plan

Register now for this upcoming webinar and get a head start on merchandising for the upcoming cycle!

Webinar Date:
Thursday, December 10th @ 2pm EST / 11am PST

We look forward to your participation! Please email sales@taurus.com with any questions.

Description:

At our last webinar, Curt Barry and Kathleen Schultz highlighted the steps managers should take in order to improve their Fall/Holiday merchandise results.

Our NEW Merchandising Metrix Webinar will highlight utilizing a combination of performance management and industry best practices, showing managers and executives a deeper overview of the Merchandising department!

In this exciting 35-minute webinar, Taurus will provide examples of challenges businesses face, key metrics that companies need to measure, and visual examples of HOW these critical metrics are measured.

Items to cover:
- Determining how the merchandise mix is performing
- How to effectively pick winners
- Replacing under-performing items
- Building the brand from the product mix perspective

Analytics that determine:
- Item profitability
- Channel profitability
- Price range profit/loss analysis
- Performance vs. plan

Register now for this upcoming webinar!

Webinar Date:
Wednesday, November 11th @ 2pm EST / 11am PST

We look forward to your participation! Email sales@taurus.com with any questions.

Catalogs are in the mail and the season will be in high gear.  This FREE 45-minute webinar will review what you can and should be doing now to ensure your goals are met, and who you need to team with to make it happen.

In this webinar, the following topics will be covered:

• What are you doing to ensure on-time delivery from your vendors?
• Is your customer service team ready to “make the sale”?
• How are you using the Web to maximize sales?
• What is your markdown strategy?
• How are you using add-ons, specials, and best-sellers?
• Should FREE shipping be used?
• What is needed qualitatively to plan the next season?

Attend this webinar and gain insight on how to lay the foundation to ensure successful merchandise results!

Webinar Date:
Wednesday, October 28th @ 2PM EST / 11AM PST

We look forward to your participation! Email sales@taurus.com with any questions.

Best-in-Class Performance

Aberdeen used three key performance criteria to distinguish Best-in-Class companies.  That performance relative to their peers was as follows:

• A 24% average year-over-year increase in operating profit, compared with a 3% increase for the Industry Average and a 27% decrease for Laggards
• An 8.3% average year-over-year improvement in customer service, compared with a 2.3% improvement for the Industry Average and a 1.0% increase for Laggards
• An 8.4% average year-over-year improvement in sales performance, compared with a 2.3% improvement for the Industry Average and a 0.6% decline for Laggards.

Competitive Maturity Assessment

Survey results show that the firms enjoying Best-in-Class performance are:

• 2.8-times more likely than Laggards to have clearly defined business unit performance metrics
• 1.7-times more likely than the Industry Average to have a process for prioritizing data for user access
• 60% more likely than all other companies to leverage performance reporting dashboards

Required Actions

In addition to the specific recommendations in Chapter Three if this report, to achieve Best-in-Class performance, companies must:

• Create a training program to educate end-users on dashboards
• Develop the ability to track the utilization of dashboard tools
• Examine the use of outward-facing customer dashboards

The key to unlocking double digit profit to us is the missing piece from the study and one of the most critical in order for companies to recognize the benefits listed above.  So what’s missing? It’s what to do with the all the data, metrics and results.  Corporate dashboards, KPI’s and BI tools can tell you so much about your business, but if you don’t know what to do with the data or how to develop a strategy to improve the business, then you can never benefit from the investment.

The difficulty is that many of these software vendors are very good at developing best in class software but traditionally fall short in being able to assist companies with how to analyze the results, understand what the numbers are saying, and in assisting you with what to do next.

This is a significant reason why F. Curtis Barry & Company decided to partner with Taurus Software – it’s about bringing together not only best-in-class dashboard, key performance indicators and business intelligence, but also to deliver world-class consulting to assist you with not only how to utilize the application but what to do with the results.  This unique approach we feel will benefit each implementation and allow companies to maximize the investment and realize all the benefits.

We encourage you to register and read the full Aberdeen Study http://www.aberdeen.com.

Brian Barry is a Senior Consultant with F. Curtis Barry & Company, a multichannel operations and fulfillment consulting firm with expertise in multichannel systems, warehouse, call center, inventory, and benchmarking; learn more online at: http://www.fcbco.com.

5 Critical Inventory Measurements for Running a More Profitable Business
Presented by:  Brian Barry, Sr. Consultant at F. Curtis Barry & Company

Description:
This FREE 30-minute webinar will cover the metrics and measurements critical to understanding inventory from a financial perspective. With inventory being one of the largest assets in most multichannel companies, effective and efficient use of inventory is a key success factor to driving profits in your business.
In this webinar, F. Curtis Barry & Company and Taurus Software will cover topics including:

• Inventory aging and maximizing the investment
• Inventory status and developing disciplined processes
• Inventory turns
• Gross margin return on investment and how to apply it in your company
• Backorders and what they really cost your company

Webinar Date:
Wednesday, August 26th @ 2PM EST / 11AM PST

We look forward to your participation! Email sales@taurus.com with any questions.

1.  Agree to a single version of the truth.  Executives should convey the strategies and objectives to top level managers and then agree on what will be measured and how it will be measured.  Agree to this and agree to the exact data and calculations so that once implemented, there is a single version of the truth that everyone is working from.
2. Start with the areas that provide the low hanging fruit.  By starting in a single area of the business you can develop an application that will provide a high ROI without spending years developing an application without recognizing any of the benefits.
3. The application must be user friendly.  This seems overly obvious, but you must remember that executives are typically not user of the various transactional systems – you need to bring them back in to the fold with regards to the data.  Develop quick snapshots and visual representations for the KPI’s and measurements so that executives can quickly see the status or health of the business.  Develop drill down capabilities and pivot tables for managers so that they can learn even more when things go awry. 
4. Develop KPI alerts and notifications for when problems arise.  Stronger applications allow for highlighting or spotlighting problems in the KPI’s and pivot tables, as well as notifications via emails etc. that can be sent to assigned people or a group of people.
5. For each of the metrics and KPI’s be sure that you can set a goal or a standard so the actual performance can be measured against these.  For instance, if you are not achieving your inventory turns goal you would be notified of the problems.  In the warehouse if your total throughput falls below a user defined variance you would be alerted to a potential problem.  By measuring actual against goals and standards your company will know where to improve processes.
6. Be sure to include your plans.  You have plans in multiple systems, maybe your order management system, inventory systems, spreadsheets etc.  And you have them for multiple areas – inventory plans, merchandising plans, sales plans, and financial plans.  Be sure to bring all of these in to the application so that you can measure plan to actual.  The same is true with budgets – all of this will make the financial analysis of your business intelligence application more intuitive as well as the other areas.
7. Agree on the source data.  Critical pieces of data can be found in numerous systems and in multiples places within the same system.  For example, the retail price for an item and its gross sales can often be found multiples times in multiple locations within most order management systems.  Once you have agreed on what will be measured and how it will be calculated, agree to which source application is best to multiple the required data from. 
8. Develop personal pages.  Instead of forcing executives and users to wade through dozens of screens or modules to see the full health of the business, allow them to pick and choose what metrics are important to them and create a personal page with those metrics on them.  For instance, a vice president who overseas both the call center and fulfillment center may only want to see 3-4 metrics from each area at a high level, allow them to create their own page and change it as necessary.  They should still have access to the full blown application with drill down capabilities if they want to know more.
9. Include all functional areas of the business.  The long term goal should be to develop an application that supports all areas of the business, from merchandising to finance and fro the call center to the warehouse.  All areas can benefit from a business intelligence application and KPI measurement.   In doing this, all levels of management will be able to see the overall health of the business and all are on board with the goals and objectives of the management team.
10. Begin today, these types of applications can have a huge ROI if done right but they do take resources, time and capital to complete.  The longer you wait the longer it could be before you realize what secrets are locked in your data.

Curt Barry is the President of F. Curtis Barry & Company, a multichannel operations and fulfillment consulting firm with expertise in multichannel systems, warehouse, call center, inventory, and benchmarking; learn more online at: http://www.fcbco.com.

Let’s take a look at how some of this can make what seems like a good inventory buy a bad buy.  A while back we worked with a company that imported a specific merchandise category from an Asian manufacturer.  The lead time for these products was 8-9 months.  By doing this, they were able to go from an average gross margin of 44% to 55% with an average price point of $51. 

Recently they made a purchase from the same manufacturer which allowed them to go from a 55% gross margin to 60% gross margin – or go from $28.05 in gross margin dollars to $30.60.  The downside was a substantial increase in the vendor minimum and a much shorter set of payment terms.  But still it seemed like a good buy, and they felt like they could sell through the extra quantity.

The reality of the situation was that the quantity purchased turned out to be a 15-month supply of inventory, causing several problems which made this a very unprofitable buy.  Here’s how:

1. A 15-month supply of inventory equates to less than .8 turns annually.
2. With a 60% gross margin and .8 turns annually, the gross margin return on investment (GMROI) is 0.48; in laymen’s terms this means for every dollar they invested in inventory purchases, the income is less than $0.48.  This is devastating to the business.  You can calculate GMROI by multiplying the decimal equivalent of your gross margin (50% = .50) times your annual turns. 
3. The increase in inventory levels and the length of time the product was warehoused caused several issues.  First, the warehouse was running close to capacity and this prolonged the pain of running low on warehouse space.  Second, the gross margin was further eroded by the inventory carrying costs – the longer it sat, the longer the margin was eroded.
4. Most importantly, the company tied up much more cash in inventory then they should have. By not turning the inventory quickly, a significant portion of the inventory will need to be liquidated in order to free-up cash and invest in other items.  Fifteen (15) months is a long time when you need to continually refresh the product mix with new products.  The liquidation will further erode the gross margin.
5. Not only did this tie up more cash than they should have but they had to pay the vendor even faster than normal.

These factors come into play and can make what seems like a good buy a very bad decision.  Having to carry more inventory, invest more cash in inventory and pay the vendor in even shorter terms will lead to several problems.  You should stick to a well disciplined buying and inventory strategy and run all the numbers before deciding whether or not it is a good buy.  If the numbers work out then consider making the investment in inventory. But don’t erode the increase in gross margin with higher shipping costs, higher inventory carrying costs, and then ending up liquidating a large portion of the inventory.

Brian Barry is a Senior Consultant with F. Curtis Barry & Company, a multichannel operations and fulfillment consulting firm with expertise in multichannel systems, warehouse, call center, inventory, and benchmarking; learn more online at: http://www.fcbco.com.

At the same time, companies that were traditionally catalog oriented are spending 25% to 35% of sales for catalog advertising costs to create, print and mail catalogs.  On the other hand, while the e-commerce programs are much cheaper, our research shows they are spending 2% to 15% of net sales on e-commerce promotions.

The problem today is that the e-commerce costs are additive, incrementally.  It’s not an offset to the catalog costs.  And at the same time, businesses have not been able to decrease catalog costs or eliminate the catalog without severely cutting sales.

How are you measuring your e-commerce promotions in terms of advertising and breakeven? 

Curt Barry is the President of F. Curtis Barry & Company, a multichannel operations and fulfillment consulting firm with expertise in multichannel systems, warehouse, call center, inventory, and benchmarking; learn more online at: http://www.fcbco.com.

At every step in the product and promotion life cycle, these three departments’ needs are different – but at the same time they all revolve around gross demand planning and results.  (By “life cycle” I’m talking about the Marketing side of planning a campaign, re-forecasting results once the initial demand is in, and then potentially re-projecting after half the campaign when the majority of sales are in.)

Merchandising’s needs are about the pre-season merchandise plan or the continual planning for the e-commerce site; the forecasting by catalog drop; and the end of the season.  What quantity of each product is needed across all promotions-print, e-commerce and store?

The thing that ties these three departments’ planning and results efforts together is gross demand data.  Marketing arrives at the catalog gross demand plan based on their circulation plans by drop, by house file, and by outside list segment.  They also must think through all the digital media in which specific products are featured – website home pages, e-mail, affiliate campaigns, etc. – and give some direction to Merchandising and Inventory Control.

Ideally, Merchandising’s catalog pre-season plans are built top-down by merchandise category, and bottom-up by product.  But they should come close to tying together with Marketing’s demand plans at the demand level. 

Then we have Inventory Control.  It’s their job to interpret the plans and selling results and purchase product far enough in advance to be in stock when customers order.  From an inventory perspective, the Inventory Control plans aren’t going to tie back to the others’ plans exactly.  Management allows Inventory Control to purchase more product than the demand plans indicate, based on vendor lead time, vendor discounts offered, etc. 

Week-for-week, one of the hardest things to do is read selling trends and interpret them in a way that allows you to make the right decisions – which ultimately provide the base line projections for yet other departments, such as Call Center and Fulfillment.  Yet from an uninitiated perspective, it looks like a free-for-all, with many different versions of plans and results. 

How can business intelligence (BI), dashboard and executive analytic tools help with this critical decision-making?  They can provide a consistent view of all the data, so that whether they’re analyzing demand or sales, all departments are utilizing a standardized view of the same data.  This allows each department to look at the segment of data that is meaningful to them.  Business Intelligence solutions allow users to take cuts of the data and compare them in multiple ways, whether it be this year to last year or actual to plan, as well as to reassemble the data and analyze it from one department to another.  Each department needs to maintain their own way of analyzing data, but also be able to bring their plans and results together in a consistent, uniform way.

The more we talked, the more the client’s managers got back inside their skins. And they realized how important having a single version of the truth, through BI tools and executive analytics, would be to planning and reconciling results-day-for-day, week-to-week, and throughout the year.

Brian Barry is a Senior Consultant with F. Curtis Barry & Company, a multichannel operations and fulfillment consulting firm with expertise in multichannel systems, warehouse, call center, inventory, and benchmarking; learn more online at: http://www.fcbco.com.