By Martin Ekpeke
One of the challenges most organizations, especially the medium enterprises contend with, is the lack of automated and reliable processes, designed to monitor and control their distribution network effectively, thus, losing a large chunk of their revenue.
As a matter of fact, many organizations in the emerging markets, which today, boast of thousands of distributors, millions of outlets and billions of potential transactions daily do not have a product movement reporting and analysis process in place.
This, industry watchers and analysts, believe is partly responsible for the huge number of collapsed enterprises. But, it does appear the challenge is gradually being addressed by the presence of locally automated solutions. These solutions, one of which is CWG’s Distribution Management System (CWG-DMS) are helping organizations across industries to control their supply chain operations, improve productivity, streamline inventory, sales processes and distributor claims to get accurate, reliable data on secondary sales.
Many organizations in the emerging markets, which today, boast of thousands of distributors, millions of outlets and billions of potential transactions daily do not have a product movement reporting and analysis process in place
Developed in-house by CWG Plc’ software developers, the Distribution Management System is touted as one of the most innovative solutions that manages a suite of distributors, keeps and presents accurate records and presents real-time monitoring and status reports and analysis for product movement.
Analyzing the product recently in Lagos, Chidiebere Asiegbu, Business Development Manager, CWG Plc disclosed that, the Distribution Management System was strategically designed to ease automation and collaboration at multi-level access channels (Web, Mobile App) and ensure security of data, improving systems collaboration within organizational distribution channels.
“Our Distribution Management System is an automated product that manages stock movement of an organization, it allows one to keep track of stock, from the warehouse to the distributor’s locations. Enhances operational visibility and dispenses different notification types as per real-time situation. More also, the application allows definition of distributors, stocks and alongside stock re-ordering rules,” he said.
The interesting thing about the CWG-DMS is that it has addressed some of the major challenges like the manual processes of ordering, payment and reconciliation; difficulties tracking product movements and the huge operational bottlenecks and unnecessary delays
Chidiebere, of CWG Plc, a leading player in the Information Technology Industry across Africa that deploys technology solutions that enables growth; further said the solution is a home grown cloud based business management solutions for large and medium enterprises with a range of capabilities.
This is necessitated, as CWG aims to support the various sectors of the economy concentrate on their core-business competencies. To achieve this, the ICT conglomerate has stated that organizations do not need to own the underlying infrastructure or worry about the cost of maintenance before they can leverage the solution to address their logistic and inventory challenges.
CWG’s core being Technology solutions places them in the right position to produce this IT infrastructure, take the burden off other businesses at a highly subsidized rate, thus leaving them to focus and perform at the optimal. The model of relationship is subscription based and so the high barrier to technology adoption faced by the Small and Medium Enterprises is removed.
“The interesting thing about the CWG-DMS is that it has addressed some of the major challenges like the manual processes of ordering, payment and reconciliation; difficulties tracking product movements and the huge operational bottlenecks and unnecessary delays,” Asiegbu stated, while asserting that the solution provides intelligent reporting and analysis of product movement.
Highlighting the value proposition, Asiegbu said DMS creates distributors operational visibility of inventories, allows manufacturers determine product’s Geo-location, turnover rates, supports auto stock replacements and mailing notification with a dynamic dashboard to monitor and evaluate key performances.
According to him, CWG-DMS creates better synergy for demand and supply through various channels of distribution, assisting organizations to understand their product characteristic demand and enforce rules for proof of delivery, even with the integration of an Android mobile app.
The CWG’s DMS product was birthed as part of the company’s change of business model to provide indigenous solutions to solve local challenges. It is an off-shoot of the SMERP solution, an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Solution designed for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to enable them manage their business operations efficiently.
The benefits of the CWG-DMS includes flexibility, efficiency, strategic business value, better business analysis and operational visibility tolerance. It has features such as order management, inventory management, workflow and alert system, online payment and distributors and products database. It is a completely intelligent system that has so much to offer logistic business and can be developed bespoke to fit varying organizational needs.
