Our Archive

There are many differing pricing methods in use across many different industries, although one of the most varied – especially in terms of promotional or time-limited pricing – consistently seems to be the food and beverage industry. Much of this is derived by the final pricing methods employed by “the big 4” and other multiples – but anything offered to the customer invariably finds its way all the way back up the supply chain requiring you, the supplier, to be able to manage the various methods across the whole of your business.

How can ERP help?

A robust standard pricing method caters for several variations such as list pricing for groups of clients, customer specific and quantity or value based discounting. It needs, however, to be coupled with ease of use in terms of administrative setup; this can take the form of data import routines, allowing the user to easily export, manipulate data and re-import it into the system with ease, although the key thing is to allow the user to do this (far) in advance of the price change coming into effect, ensuring the administration and testing is done prior to the start date.

Common limitations

The place where many ERP systems fall down though, is the ability to cope with the dreaded promotions, the time based pricing methods designed to drive an increase in sales sufficient to cover the reduction in margin. For the back office staff, the ability to store and utilise these pricing methods is often as much of a black hole as analysing the results, requiring much use of spreadsheets and manual price lists. The answer to this is, of course, a promotions module.
Solution

A good promotions system will not only allow you to store the many intricate pricing methods employed such as BOGOF or bonus products, off-invoice pricing discount % or amounts and the retrospective rebates but also cater for the financial accruals and reporting required. Rebates tend to be especially difficult to manage with potential complications such as tiered systems based on revenue limits or product exclusions or any combination thereof. There is also the situation where multiple promotions run concurrently so a discounted price may also have a BOGOF attached to it – again, a nightmare for a manual system to cope with.

Benefits

• Reduction in manual pricing overrides
• Less credit notes
• Improved payment profile/cash flow
• System generated accruals for rebates
• Data import routines
• Transparent data for reconciliation and reporting

To find our more visit: Lakeview

Author: Chris Hems, Product Director at Lakeview Computers

IN THE PRESS

Lakeview for food and beverage companies: In an independent supplement distributed within The Sunday Telegraph

Before you tuck into your Sunday lunch, read how Systems Integration bring something different to the table with their new Integreater® software…

What it says on the label is just as important for food and drink suppliers as it is for customers, says ERP software company Lakeview.

Food Safety regulations are many and detailed. There are ever-increasing and changing European Union and UK laws affecting food labelling which have an impact of all aspects of food production and supply. While the purpose is to protect and inform the consumer, and to deal with potential health issues, the challenge is for UK food companies to comply with all these regulations. And this is where Lakeview can help.

While the purpose is to protect and inform the consumer… the challenge is for UK food companies to comply with all these regulations

So what information is required on labels?

For a start, the composition and origins of the product must match the legal requirement to use the food name. The ingredients and their amounts, including plant or meat species, must be included.

Other information that may be needed includes manufacturer or grower’s name, address and country of origin; the use-by or expiry date; health warnings (including allergy or intolerance issues); storage instructions; and organic and Fairtrade origins. The issue for businesses in the food supply chain is not the actual printing of the labels, or indeed the scanning, but the ability to store all the data required in one integrated system. Many businesses today have to hold the label data on multiple systems that do not link – often data is re-entered with errors and this is time wasted.

What is also essential is the ability to quickly trace online from final product back to raw ingredients (“fork to farm”) when there is need
for product recall. Equally important can be identifying where a substandard ingredient has been used (“farm to fork”). Without the right
ERP system, it can be a sticky business.

Visit: www.lakeview.co.uk

Source: An independent supplement distributed within The Sunday Telegraph

Technorati Tags: food and beverage erp, food customer, food labelling

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/econo…

British manufacturing growth held at a record level in February and factory costs stayed near January’s survey high, suggesting price pressures are continuing to build.

The Markit/CIPS headline manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) stood at 61.5 in February, unchanged from a downwardly revised 61.5 in January. That was the highest since the survey began in January 1992 and above the consensus forecast of 61.

Signs of robust manufacturing growth and surging manufacturing costs could add to calls for the Bank of England to raise interest rates sooner rather than later to curb inflationary pressures.

Consumer price inflation is running at double the central bank’s 2pc target and is set to rise further, while interest rates have been at a record low of 0.5 percent since March 2009.

“Input cost and output price inflationary pressures remain elevated, which may raise a further eyebrow amongst the members of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee,” said Rob Dobson, senior economist at Markit.

The PMI’s input price sub-index’s reading of 83.7 was close to January’s revised survey high of 84.1 and was led by rising prices for raw materials such as cotton, energy and metals.

Source: The Telegraph

Technorati Tags: growth in manufacturing

By Derek du Preez, Computing News

Cheltenham Borough Council has been selected to host an ERP system that it will share with Cotswold District Council, Forest of Dean District Council and West Oxfordshire District Council.

“We were looking at particularly sharing services that could support our front line services, and this seemed like the obvious first step,” said Pat Pratley, senior responsible owner for the programme.

“We are particularly excited about the procurement possibilities, and what this could mean for savings by sharing procurement services,” she added.

Pratley told Computing that this is just the first step in developing shared services across the local councils.

“We are looking at broadening this and sharing professional services in the future. This would include such things as accountants and HR advisers,” she said.

Cheltenham was chosen as the “centre of excellence” to support and host the system, which is still being built. The plan is for the system to go live in October 2011, when services will merge between Cheltenham, Forest of Dean and West Oxfordshire. It will be extended to Cotswold District Council in April 2012.

“The application is going to be delivered to users mostly by a web client, but if they want capabilities for all services they will have to use a full client,” said Cheltenham council’s Rob Wood, project manager for the shared services agreement.

“All of these will be delivered over our network and systems. As a public organisation, we still have too many reservations about security in the cloud,” he added.

The project is expected to cost £1.4m in total, and deliver net savings of £2m over 10 years.

“We are generating these savings by rationalising our systems and staff cuts,” said Patley.

“However, we are avoiding redundancy costs by managing vacancies and temporary positions.”

Separately, it was revealed this week in Birmingham City Council’s latest budget report that the council is interested in developing a range of shared services with other organisations.

“There is a desire to integrate or share back-office and support services with other public bodies, and where possible, sectors,” Birmingham City Council said in its ‘Draft Council Business Plan 2011+‘.

“This shared services approach will be built on to create further efficiency. Plans are in place for expanding HR and payroll service sharing.”

According to the draft plan, the council also aims to reduce the cost of its ICT support structure by £185,000 in 2011/2012, and by £395,000 between 2012 and 2015.

No one at Birmingham City Council was available for comment .

Meanwhile, it was announced earlier in the week that three London councils – Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea and Hammersmith & Fulham – are set to save £400,000 a year by rationalising ICT jobs as part of their ongoing shared services strategy.

More and more councils are facing significant pressure to cut costs following Chancellor George Osborne’s Comprehensive Spending Review in which he said that some councils would have to reduce spending by as much as 30 per cent.