Urban Outfitters Moves to Vendor Scorecards
Urban Outfitters' 20% rate of growth over the past several years has engendered significant expansion of its vendor base, which exceeds 1,500 suppliers today.
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Perfect Order Index Becoming Major Component of Vendor Scorecards
A significant number of vendors say their retail customers include all four components of the Perfect Order Index (POI) in their vendor scorecards, a strong validation of this index's ability to portray a holistic view of a trading partner's supply chain capabilities.
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Forces of Change Require New Ways of Working Together
Because consumers are confronted with extraordinary challenges that are causing dramatic shifts in purchasing patterns, retailers and manufacturers who are inextricably linked to consumer behavior are undergoing seismic shifts in how they operate. Trading partners are dealing with a global economy in crisis, demographic shifts, new technologies, a changing retail landscape as new sales channels emerge and demands for environmental stewardship that can only be met via collaborative efforts.
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TPMA Viewpoint: What Am I Getting For My Trade Promotion Dollars?
In the trade promotion world, a great deal of attention is being paid these days to measuring results. This is quite understandable and quite proper, many billions are spent on trade promotion, and it is essential that the effectiveness of those billions be evaluated fully.
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Perry Ellis Saves Hundreds of Thousands by Streamlining Freight Auditing
As it grew from $300 million to $900 million in revenue, and as its list of suppliers in Asia and Latin America were increasing and constantly changing, apparel and fragrance manufacturer Perry Ellis International began to feel the strain of trying to manually audit its freight bills. The company was not able to thoroughly analyze the growing numbers of bills and complex carrier contracts, despite hiring a third party auditor, and it realized that significant over-charges were falling through the cracks and were not being identified.
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Compliance Professional Skills Broaden As Companies Get Lean
Cut-backs at manufacturing companies, as at companies in many industries, have been commonplace during the recession. For compliance mangers, many of whom had significant workloads pre-recession, the burden of meeting the needs of their customers' business requirements becomes greater as they are asked to take on additional responsibilities.
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Financial Crisis Sends Credit Professionals Back to Basics
Compared to two years ago, how many companies that you do business with no longer have easy access to credit that could help them weather a difficult economic stretch? For many credit professionals, that figure has risen dramatically, creating a greater sense of urgency to stay on top of their troubled accounts.
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Media Fragmentation Fuels Growth of In-Store, and (Maybe) On-Line Marketing
We've all seen and heard the stories about closings or rumored closings or threatened closings of newspapers that have been in business for sometimes 150 years. It seems a recent event, but in fact it has been creeping up on us for some time, the recession has just accelerated the process.
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The Business of Electronic Conversations
According to some marketing theorists, conversation marketing is the new paradigm in marketing. It would replace simplistic notions of "pushing" product, or of doing marketing research based on a rigid set of unvarying questions. Conversation marketing is supposedly about the internet's ability to generate conversations between buyers and sellers.
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Latest Cases Herald Intense Scrutiny of Pricing Practices
Two recent antitrust developments implicate the legality of industry pricing practices and usher in a new era in which pricing practices will be highly scrutinized.
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Align Processes During the Slow Times to Curb Deductions
The April issue of The VCF Report contained the results of a survey on expectations for deductions. The key finding was that "78 percent say staff reductions in compliance correlates with an increase in deduction volume." This is a surprising finding in that in periods where transaction volumes are down, the overall level of supply chain performance tends to improve because the negative impact of peak period requirements on key performance measures such as on time delivery and in stock is lessened.
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More Retailers Join VCF as Members
VCF is pleased to welcome Office Depot, Sears Holdings Management Corporation, Family Dollar, Stein Mart and Hot Topic as the most recent VCF Retailer Members. They have joined long-standing members such as Neiman Marcus Group, JCPenney, Kohl's, Burlington Coat Factory, and Dick's Sporting Goods, among many others.
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Upturn Creates a Different Set of Problems
A few weeks ago, in our newsletter, TPMA Outlook, I speculated on the possibility that retailers might have cut their inventories so lean that they stood the chance of getting caught short (and losing much-needed sales) if, as many signs are indicating, the recession has hit bottom and some consumers are beginning to spend again. The desire to keep things tight is understandable&
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Educational Higlights

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