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Please Note: Due to confidentiality agreement restrictions, we will be referring to a fictitious company called Shoes.nl. The actual company to whom the digital transformation implementation is aimed at does not wish to have their name and business/IT strategy discussed in the public domain.

 

What happens when your company is experiencing exponential growth, but the IT strategy just cannot keep up? You guessed it … it is time to undergo a digital transformation. Shoes.nl sells shoes and accessories in the Netherlands and abroad, and due to their unique designs and competitive pricing strategy, have experienced a wealth of growth over the past few years. This pattern of growth is expected to continue, with the company predicting a quadrupling of their revenues between 2016 and 2020.

Although this all sounds good in theory, the IT systems, or lack of as the case may be, that are currently in place just do not have the capacity to handle this volume of trade, with many of the basic day-to-day tasks such as order processing being performed manually.  This not only is very error prone and time-consuming, but also causes orders to be put on hold because there simply has not been time to handle them yet.

Shoes.nl has two different distribution channels: selling directly to customers in a B2C relationship, and to retailers in a B2B relationship, who then sell to customers through their webshop and sales outlets. The problem with this is that the two webshops that the company uses for its two different types of customers, do not integrate with other systems such as the software used for the bookkeeping and accounting. It is also difficult to control stock, without a proper stock management system in place, with customers and suppliers frequently having to fill in excel sheets which are then manually uploaded by employees.

Shoes.nl has several business needs they want to fulfil, with some of the most important of these being increasing the use of IT in the warehouse, as well as using a more integrable accounting system to link up with other systems currently used. On top of this the company needs to find a ‘one source of truth’ system, enabling information to be easily available when required, in addition to creating a KPI dashboard, using real-time data, and automating order processing. But what type of disruptive technology should the company use to achieve these business needs, and how will they know if it is right for their company? Enter, the Enterprise Resource Planning system.

An Enterprise Resource Planning System, or ERP for short, is a system that allows a company to manage and integrate the most important parts of its business (Investopedia, 2016). But how does Shoes.nl know that they are ready for an ERP system? Well according to Gratch (2015), it may be time for ERP implementation when:

• The amount of inventory in the warehouse becomes difficult to determine
• The company is struggling to keep up with an upsurge of orders or relies heavily on excel spreadsheets
• Getting solid facts becomes problematic

As we know, these are all issues that the company is really struggling with. We therefore recommend a three-step plan which the company can implement to enable them to reach their full potential, and meet all current and future demand through the use of improved IT.

Firstly, Shoes.nl needs to find a new warehouse with IT already embedded, allowing them to get a better grip on their order fulfilment and stock position. Secondly, they need to switch to a bookkeeping and accountancy system with better interoperability. That way, as a final step, they can integrate their different IT systems into one ERP and realise their ambitious plans. In the future, the company can also add more dimensions to their ERP, helping them to transform to a business using IT and the ERP at the forefront of their operations.

 

 

References

Gratch, O. (2015)  “To ERP or Not to ERP: Should SMB’s Invest In Enterprise Resource Planning?”

Retrieved from: http://www.business.com/technology/erp-what-it-means-for-you-and-your-small-business/

 

Investopedia (2016)  “Enterprise Resource Planning – ERP”

Retrieved from: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/erp.asp

 

Group 44

Suzanne Louis – 369054

Nick Filby – 366641

Luc Faëlens – 369624

Olympe Lefèvre – 374320

 

 

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Over the past few years, you may have noticed the increased use of technology in supermarkets, such as self-service checkouts, or handheld devices to scan products as you make your way round the store. With supermarkets being traditionally very labour intensive places of work, and with wages on the rise, it is clear that companies need to find a way to keep their profit levels sustainable, and reducing the amount of labour needed in stores is certainly one of these ways. However, to what extent will new technology continue to be implemented in stores, and is it only a matter of time before we have absolutely no customer-to-shop-assistant points of contact when embarking on our weekly shop? Deloitte predicts that over the next 20 years, over 2.1 million jobs will be lost from the wholesale and retail industries in the UK alone (Mesure, 2016), but is it really feasible to have fully-automated stores, and if so what effect will this have on current and potential future employees?

One man in Sweden thinks he has the answer. Robert Ilijason is an IT specialist living in the Swedish town of Viken, and has been running an almost fully automated grocery store there for the past few months. Customers must download and register on a smartphone app to even enter the store, and then proceed to scan items using their device, which they then receive an invoice for at the end of each month (Prindle, 2016). Ilijason also does not have to worry about theft in his store, as the need to register on the app with personal details, as well as six in-store surveillance cameras makes it very easy to track who has been in the store and what they have been doing in there (Prindle, 2016). The one element which is not fully automated however is the stacking of shelves, and Ilijason has to go to the store himself to replenish items that have sold out.

So where does this leave current retail employees, and the millions of youngsters who want to earn a bit of extra money on the side of their studies by taking up a Saturday job in retail? Well although Ilijason’s concept is a very nice and clearly feasible idea on the small scale, realistically a large supermarket is going to find it very difficult to make the transition to become fully-automated, purely due to the inefficiencies they face. According to Paul Foley of Foley Retail Consulting, the process of using self-service checkouts to put through large trolley loads of items would be “so slow it becomes unviable” (Mesure, 2016). He also comments that “anything retailers save on labour would be counteracted by the cost of needing extra space and equipment to install more self-service tills” (Mesure, 2016). Shelf replenishment is another element that requires a lot more investigation into how this can become fully-automated in a large grocery store.

So for the time being at least, it appears the full automation of supermarkets is still a fair way off, especially as companies still understand the importance of having at least some face-to-face interaction. Research conducted again by Foley Retail Consulting found that in the UK, 28% of grocery shoppers say that having friendly, helpful staff is one of the key reasons why they choose to visit a particular store (Mesure, 2016). Of course this is likely to change in the future as the use of technology becomes more and more embedded into each new generation of people.

It will be very interesting to observe in the coming years if new technologies and the increasing need to cut costs and retain profit margins for supermarkets will eventually lead to fully-automated stores, or whether the constraints that have already been referred to will remain permanent stumbling blocks for large stores attempting to automate every part of the in-store customer experience. Another very interesting avenue to explore in the future with regard to supermarket automation is the use of radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags on individual grocery items. This new technology has clear benefits for the retail industry, such as improving stock accuracy and reducing shrinkage (Långström, 2013). However implementing this technology in-store would require a complete overhaul of how supermarkets operate, and it will take a brave and bold step to elect first mover status.

 

 

References

Långström, H. (2013)

Grocery industry operations are facing a real paradigm shift

Retrieved from: http://www.rfidarena.com/2013/4/11/grocery-industry-operations-

are-facing-a-real-paradigm-shift.aspx

 

Mesure, S. (2016)

Analysis: Automation and the future of the retail workforce

Retrieved from: https://www.retail-week.com/topics/retail-operations/

analysis-automation-and-the-future-of-the-retail-workforce/7006875.article

 

Prindle, D. (2016)

This automated store in Sweden doesn’t have any human employees – only a smartphone app

Retrieved from: http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/

sweden-app-enabled-automated-store/

 

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It was once said that “Innovation flows through Rotterdam, like the water through the Maas” (Port of Rotterdam, 2016). The Port of Rotterdam is one of the hubs of innovation in Rotterdam, and has built up a reputation in recent years of being one of the most technologically developed ports worldwide. This is due to, amongst other features, the use of automated guided vehicles to move cargo around the docks, and computer controlled cranes to load and unload goods entering or leaving the port. However up until now, the use of autonomous technologies has been largely limited to on-land operations. Enter the Waste Shark.

In partnership with South African start-up RanMarine, the Waste Shark, an autonomous drone roughly the size of a small car, will patrol the port waters, collecting up to 500kg of waste in one go in an ‘open mouth’ operating at 35cm below the water surface (Port of Rotterdam, 2016). The drone has the ability to learn its environment, finding more efficient routes and automatically unloading the waste at a designated collection point once full (van Wulfen, 2016). More and more plastic waste is ending up in our oceans and seas, and according to Port XL, 90% of that waste comes from urban areas (van Wulfen, 2016). However in and around the Port of Rotterdam, with congested waterways and structural obstacles, it is very often not safe or generally impractical for humans to collect this waste. This is where the Waste Shark comes can come into its own. Although this new innovative technology has never been used before in a port, by trialling it in Europe’s largest port and throwing it in at the deep end so to speak, then if successful this should encourage other port authorities around the world to sit up and take note. The Waste Shark can help both by reducing the amount of plastic waste that enters our oceans, and in the long run cutting costs as humans will no longer be required for these types of jobs.

In 2015, it is estimated that there were 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic debris in the ocean, with 269,000 tonnes of this found on the surface (Morris, 2016). This has far reaching and profoundly deep consequences for our environment, as well as our health. Small plastic debris can be ingested by fish, which in turn are consumed by humans, leaving undesirable and harmful chemicals in our bodies (United Nations Environment Programme, 2016). As well as this, due to the slow degradation of these materials, they can be left floating at sea for years, until being washed up on a beach in a foreign land. By introducing four Waste Sharks into the waters of the Port of Rotterdam, initially on a six month trial the port authority is aiming to tackle this problem at the source. Although it is only a start, this could potentially go a long way to tackling the problem. If the trial is successful, in the future the Waste Shark could take a serious chunk out of global plastic pollution in our oceans and seas.

 

 

References

Morris, D. Z. (2016)

Trash-Eating “Shark” Drone Hits the Water in Rotterdam

Retrieved from: http://fortune.com/2016/09/11/trash-eating-drone-boat/

 

Port of Rotterdam (2016)

Water drone is Rotterdam’s latest port innovation

Retrieved from: https://www.portofrotterdam.com/en/news-and-press-releases/

water-drone-is-rotterdams-latest-port-innovation

 

United Nations Environment Programme (2016)

Plastic and Microplastics in our Oceans – A Serious Environmental Threat

Retrieved from: http://www.unep.org/stories/Ecosystems

Plastic-and-Microplastics-in-our-Oceans.asp

 

van Wulfen, G. (2016)

New Trash-Eating “Shark” Cleans the Water in Rotterdam

Retrieved from: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/new-trash-eating-shark-

cleans-water-rotterdam-gijs-van-wulfen