The Inovis Blog

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I read this interesting article the other day called Yes, I’d like to renew this, please… The piece talks about finding this Finnish library book that turns up after being checked out of the library 100 years prior. The library completely lost track of this book and had no idea this book was even out there. Apparently there was still a note in the book reminding those who checked it out that there was a ten cent fee every week that it was returned late.

This article got me thinking, especially in today’s world with all of the information that we’re inundated with, how do we ever keep track of this stuff? Of course I put it in the context of our business and I thought to myself, if you’re a retailer, you’ve got hundreds or thousands of vendors that you’re constantly communicating with, and you’ve established your standards. You have your fines and your offsets to try and drive behavior just like this library did, but it’s only as effective as your ability to track what’s going on.

How often do retailers struggle with that simple ability to inspect what’s happening and be able to enforce the penalties? It’s not that they want the penalty, just like the library doesn’t want the penalty. The library wants the book back and the retailer wants the information timely and accurate.

That’s what our supply chain optimization solutions are really all about. It’s about providing the retailer that visibility to inspect what’s going on and to be able to monitor the flow of information between their suppliers and them to really maximize it.

Similarly, I think about it from the Vendor standpoint. Not to throw any of the video companies under the bus, but I know quite often whether it be my local library or the local video store, I will have done something on time, but they’ll be trying to fine me anyway. How frustrating is that as a consumer? It’s certainly frustrating as a vendor.

We want to help the supply chain to drive out errors. That comes in two flavors: in the retailer’s ability to drive out errors and really look to where the vendor’s making mistakes, and from the other side giving the vendor the ability to see the same information so they can not only get better about what they’re doing, but they can also spot those differences where maybe that wasn’t a legitimate chargeback. On the whole, improve the overall relationship by helping them to see what’s going on and have a common version of those facts, and be able to identify where they continually have those problems, so that the retailer can spot it, the vendor can see the same thing and work to improve, and also dispel those items that just might be false. It might need to be a mix between the two.