Bee Market

“The Bee” Supermarkets is a Ukrainian retail chain consisting of 38 stores and distribution centers with 15,000 SKUs specializing in food products as well as an in-house production.

The business faced new challenges due to the 2020 pandemic demonstrating its service level, product range and flexibility in the competitive market. Retailers are now choosing a strategy to deal with internal issues. Many resources can be due to the internal business processes bottlenecks. The retail chain initiated the inventory management system establishment.

Challenge

Sales Increase 

Prior to the Leafio Inventory Optimization Solution introduction, inventory management used to be done manually causing a mess in purchasing:

• surplus of goods;
• empty shelves as a result of incorrect order quantity;
• human factor errors – inability to manage a large number of parameters.

Company management had a clear vision of inventory management automation to eliminate all bottlenecks:

1. Set up order automation and reduce the manual work burden on managers.
2. Generate orders, based on actual demand, seasonal changes and promos.
3. Access a clear algorithm for perishable goods.
4. Establish work with suppliers, and avoid surpluses.

The Leafio Inventory Optimization Solution's implementation goals were to reduce surpluses, increase sales and create an inventory management structure so as to scale up the business. The key factors of retail chain profitability:

• reduced surpluses resulting in more capital funds;
• improved turnover;
• eliminated lost sales. Automatization and high-quality analytics - are powerful tools in the competitive market.

Process

Inventory Management System Implementation Stages

The Leafio Inventory Optimization Solution implementation stages: 

• company's inventory management business processes analysis;
• the retail chain accounting system integration with Leafio Inventory Optimization Solution;
• users system training;
• analytics setup;
• transfer to Leafio Customer Success department.

The manager of the LEAFIO implementation team was supporting its members throughout all the stages. It is a complete immersion into the project, a proven methodology and a personal approach to each client. The Leafio specialists accompanied users personally when creating the first orders and analyzed KPIs using reports. 

Result

System Efficiency In-Depth

The retail chain has completely redefined its inventory management automation, minimized the manual work as well as organized purchasing process more accurately. The headquarters monitor the stock dynamics throughout the retail chain, leading to the strategically proper decisions.

The exact quantity of goods to order

The retail chain employees had some concerns about the probable lack of ordered goods generated by the system at the implementation stage, but they assured in the right calculation. The system's target stock levels are determined at each warehouse for each SKU buffer, it never orders the wrong quantity constantly monitoring the demand dynamics. The separate system algorithm is used for the Fresh category, to make on-time purchases, as well as minimize waste.

AI-POWERED SOLUTION FOR AUTOMATED REPLENISHMENT

Meet your demand every time

REQUEST A DEMO

High-quality analytics and a new working approach with suppliers

The company has received a new analytics tool of actual data for top management, operational staff and category managers with 20 reports to optimize work with suppliers by assessing the purchases and sales, turnover and balances for the goods and particular supplier reliability.

Many managers are prone to order more as it eliminates lost sales, however, it negatively affects the retail chain's profitability due to overstocks. The Leafio Inventory Optimization system determines a balance without buying more goods if it is not profitable for the retail chain.