GfK today announced the launch of GfK Supply Chain Management Insights, a solution that addresses the growing challenge of managing an end-to-end global supply chain for IT and technology manufacturers, distributors, suppliers and sales channels. Global businesses need their supply chains to deliver competitive advantage - but two things are happening that make supply chain management ever more challenging. Firstly, the speed of innovation is outpacing customer-driven product replacement cycles.
This means that vendors have to adapt their supply chains quickly. Secondly, the globalization of supply chains - designed to enable greater efficiencies and economies of scale - is also leading to increasingly complex networks with multiple sourcing, suppliers and resources. GfK data show that European IT specialists are, on average, sourcing products from six different distributors - and over a quarter (28 percent) changed at least one of their distribution partners in the last year. Rudi Aunkofer,
Global Director for IT at GfK, says, “Our clients needed one consistent and comprehensive view of the end-to-end supply chain. We have provided that by bringing together the complex data sets for distribution, retail and reseller information into a single database - the first agency to achieve this. Our clients can now get consistent reporting across 34 European countries, segmented by regions, features, channels, customers and price bands. This universal view will make it much easier to identify improvements and efficiencies within supply chains for maximum performance and profitability.” GfK Supply Chain Management Insights consists of four elements, which can be taken separately or as a complete service, covering:
- Order management & logistics optimization
- Product information management
- Sales management & marketing optimization
- Volume management & sales planning
