SPI - Retail Insights Blog - Tradeflow Optimization<sup><font size="1">SM</font></sup>

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Tradeflow Optimization^SM

I've chosen to kick SPI's retail technology blog off with a broad topic but one that has the potential to unlock a world of value to retailers and vendors alike: Tradeflow Optimization^SM.

Now, you'll notice that only the second word in this phrase is technically in the dictionary. After huddling up to assign a name to this SPI solution, we arrived at Tradeflow Optimization because it does exactly that - it optimizes the processes, logistics, technology and workflow around the flow of goods from suppliers to retailers.

'Tradeflow' is more descriptive of what SPI is doing than any word out there, so we ran with it. Tradeflow Optimization it was, and that's how we'll refer to it in subsequent posts.

The solution, in a nutshell, is all about the simplification and streamlining of the interaction between retailers and their vendors so that the effort is minimal and the exchange is error-free. We make this happen through data accessibility, process automation, enhancements, etc that are implemented into ERP systems, but we'll get to that later. In this post, I feel that the 10,000 foot view of Tradeflow Optimization is appropriate because it has so many moving parts and each and every one can be different, depending on a retailer's needs.

With that overarching idea, in my mind the most obvious place to start this discussion is around today's retail landscape and the role Tradeflow Optimization plays in it. In a couple of posts, I'll walk through a real life scenario that a client of ours actually faced.

In seeing it "live," you'll be able to follow the approach we took and why we did what we did to solve the issue. We find more often than not that Retailer A faces similar obstacles as Retailer B, so recapping the customized software, workflow improvements and business process automation that we implemented will hopefully be beneficial.