Regain Control with Leading Supply Chain Management

Explore the Ignition by TELUS suite of supply chain management solutions, which offer 360-degrees of visibility along the supply chain for food distributors and processors.

This summer, Ignition by TELUS joined Barcoding, one of the largest integrators and resellers of supply chain data capture and mobile tech solutions, for a virtual June webinar Huddle, “Regain Control of Your Supply Chain,” to discuss leading supply chain management solutions. Barcoding’s Huddles provide viewers with the opportunity to hear supply chain experts discuss emerging technologies and how they help to solve problems facing the industry.

June’s huddle explored the challenges behind warehousing and distribution operations and the influences of the current, particularly difficult climate of changing consumer demands. Ignition by TELUS weighed in with solutions that offer a 360-degree view of all the metrics needed to avoid the easily lost visibility into inventory, revenue, downtime, processes, and more. Watch a recording of Barcoding’s full Huddle with Ignition by TELUS.

Barcoding’s VP of Marketing and Strategic Partnerships, Jody Costa, began the Huddle with a brief testimonial video. This video showcased the results from satisfied consumers who have increased business growth through improved supply chain visibility, reduced out-of-stocks, and decreased labor costs with software solutions from Ignition by TELUS.

Watch the short video and hear the full testimonials here.

Visibility and connectivity into supply chain management

Diving into the webinar, Director of Product and Sales Strategy at Ignition by TELUS, Jim Hilton, delves into the increasingly critical need of visibility and connectivity in supply chain management that’s perhaps even more critical for the food industry.

There’s a high-level of complexity to warehousing/shipping food that Ignition by TELUS solutions are purpose built for as they’re designed to deal with many complexities such as different units of measurement. For example, a business may sell apples by the piece, by the pound, by the bag, or by the pallet. No matter the unit your company sells, Ignition by TELUS systems have the capabilities to track these different units of measure, such as the purchase, the sell, the inventory, and the price by unit of measure, etc.

In addition, Ignition by TELUS’ purpose-built supply chain management solutions have the capabilities to track catch weight items that are vital for inventory evaluation and e-commerce as it’s typical for food and beverage products to have different weights, nutritional values, and provenance.

With software designed to follow the specific, complex food and beverage government mandates, safety requirements, traceability, lots, ideal temperatures, storage requirements, loading requirements, power positions, center aisle/side door configurations, stack-ability issues, and more, you’re given optimum visibility capable of addressing the challenges of other industries.

“What’s going to be a permanent post-COVID fixture of the food and beverage industry going forward?”

Shifts in the restaurant industry such as staffing shortages and changing consumer interests that resulted from the recent years disruptions have caused many restaurants to change their business models. The businesses that have been the most successful and will continue to be, are those that adapted and were flexible. The conveniences that were adopted as a result must become permanent post-COVID fixtures, such as online orders, and curb-side pick-up.

One major trend that was made abundantly clear within past years, is that we need more visibility. One study showed that prior to 2020 retail grocers had only 75% confidence that products on their shelves were inventoried accurately. As we’ve seen from shortages, the issues these inaccuracies hold the potential to create are monumental and can make or break a business. Today, accuracy needs to be greatly improved in order to serve customers in the ways they demand.

Businesses need systems in place that aren’t rigid and that are able to change and grow along with the business to remain profitable and flexible. With supply chain management software, operators have the flexibility to adjust to market conditions. They’ll have the powers necessary to, not only survive, but thrive in today’s conditions with capabilities to:

• quickly move products around to get their most popular items in,
• identify where spikes in supply and demand are,
• get visibility into what they have in inventory,
• understand which products they can get and move as well as which they can’t and find suitable substitutes.

What are the benefits of knowledge sharing throughout supply chain management?

Ignition by TELUS believes that visibility should be an “east to west” concept, rather than a “north to south” approach with data that travels down through one operational team. The software solutions that businesses need, are the ones in which every team along the supply chain has access and can leverage the same information to make decisions in real-time. In which case, in the instance a customer refuses a shipment, the driver, the warehouse, sales, and customer service will all know about the situation and can act accordingly.

Business scalability: Leading supply chain solutions for large operations, mid-tier organizations and smaller regional organizations

Some individuals may be thinking these solutions sound amazing but may question if they’re out of reach for smaller scale businesses. Those individuals need not be concerned, as Ignition by TELUS provides solutions for companies of different scales as mentioned by Brian Nickila of Portland French Bakery during the Huddle’s replay of the above-mentioned testimonial video.  Listen to Brian Nickila’s experience with Ignition by TELUS solutions as a smaller scale business here.

Companies search for software at different growth points in the organization. Ignition by TELUS finds it tends to be at the point in which companies work to reinvent themselves or, more accurately, when they take opportunities to optimize. Technology is the enabler of successful reinventions, and they typically happen at these milestones:

• When a company is around $30 million, they want to reduce manual processes and automate
• At around $60 million, inventory management becomes problematic, and the company looks for a solution that delivers data related to delivery, traceability, food safety, and others
• At around $100 million, distributors are managing larger facilities, often several DC and they’re focused on optimizing them
• Above that, companies have systems in place and are actively seeking process improvement to optimize profit

“If you’re unable to adapt to changing situations, you need better technology.”

Automation, visibility, and traceability in the delivery process

At a basic level, proof of delivery completes the chain of custody and ensures the package is delivered to the correct recipient. At a higher level, with the right solution, proof of delivery supports business relationships, finalizes the tracking of the delivery, and provides insight into a drop-off to help a company confirm the details of deliveries if necessary.

A large business using Ignition by TELUS proof of delivery solutions, ran into an issue in which a scheduled unattended delivery was dropped with a consumer that later reported one case of the delivery to be missing. From using Ignition by TELUS solutions, the company was able to check and confirm with their consumer, when the item was scanned, where the item was scanned, what was scanned beforehand as well as afterwards, to pinpoint the location of the case.

In this situation, the distributor was able to protect themself while avoiding the time and expense of having to replace the case, as well as improve their relationship with their customer by helping locate the package with the information they had access to. Learn more about this large-scale company’s situation by listening to the Huddle at the link below.

Ignition by TELUS would like to thank Barcoding for hosting this Huddle and exploring our leading supply chain management software solutions for operators and distributors that provide businesses with the necessary tools to regain control of their supply chains!

If you’d like to connect, chat with us, and gain insight into what solutions will help your business and its challenges.

Watch the full Barcoding Huddle with Ignition by TELUS here.