Distribution networks optimisation

Akeance Consulting's offer implies a good knowledge of the detailed activities carried out in a distribution network in order to enable the development of either the network's dimensioning or the objectives assigned to the network or the network's skills through appropriate training.

The companies concerned by our offer are therefore distribution companies in general, including banking networks. Paradoxically, Akeance Consulting's interlocutors are rather the top management or logistics departments (particularly in mass distribution) than the distribution departments.

Akeance Consulting has its own method known as "LORD" for “Levers of Optimising Distribution Networks”.
Indeed, the first part of this type of mission consists in a detailed analysis of the tasks carried out in the shops / agencies on the basis of a "scan" of each person's day, in the form of successive tasks and their related parameters (the task for instance is to "present a product" and the parameters would then be "the product itself", "the customer or prospect", "the day of the week", etc.).

All of these activities thus identified constitute a material of time spent which allows analyzes sorted by store, by grade, by day, by product, etc.

Beyond these analyzes, this knowledge facilitates significant projects such as the revision of the objectives by store / by person, the reconfiguration of the staff within the network or the implementation of sales training programs for a category of staff.

This approach has the great advantage of being close to the activity. It avoids approaches that rely on declarative statements whose time work are known to be underestimated for tasks that are well mastered or rewarding and overestimated otherwise. As for the good old timekeeper, it is a bit old fashioned.

Beyond distribution networks, this approach is suitable for any organization with similar tasks spread over many teams. As an example, Akeance Consulting used this method to optimize a significant accounting department.

Akeance Consulting's experience in organization shows that many clients think they can solve dysfunctions and quality problems by reorganizing their teams, creating new hierarchical relationships, introducing new profiles, etc. They often lack a good knowledge of the "things to do" that is to say the tasks performed by the teams.

In the best case, an analysis is made on a specific issue: overcrowding files, too many errors here and there, delays in decisions, etc. But a good reorganization requires detailed knowledge of the tasks performed in a given perimeter.

A simple illustration: all bank branches spend a significant amount of time to inform the police who regularly question the bank shop, to top up ATMs with cash, to launch security systems, to change the surveillance cameras, etc. We can multiply the examples as we please. Our experience leds us to note that companies are focused on optimizing value-added tasks to the point that they underestimate other tasks, which, however, are essential and inevitable.

Distribution networks have an unfortunate tendency to be so organized by  “silos”, to the point that some differences in prices, products or services, additional sales conditions, etc., emerge.
Customer often faces difficulties in talking through a chat or a call centre which put them "on hold"? Consequently, the customer ends up going to a physical point of sale with two complaints : once about the problem of arbitration between several channels and the other about the difficulty of remote interaction !
In addition, the physical network may involve price and service trade-offs... Let's make sure that the different distribution networks and customer relationship department are better coordinated.