Challenge
Fast growing pharmaceutical and cosmetics manufacturer decided to extend its offering and provide Clients with possibility to completely outsource their operations. New subsidiary within the group was created to perform e-commerce fulfillment services and ship customer orders across Europe. Company operations team had no previous experience in handling D2C orders and parcel courier shipments. WMS used at the company plant lacked integration capabilities and would require extensive adjustments to enable unit level picking processes.
Actions
In order to address these challenges company decided to implement a separate Warehouse Management System for its Fulfillment Services Subsidiary. Our experts aided company operations team and conducted in-depth WMS systems market research and provided company leadership with a short list of potential vendors. Based on through analysis TO-BE documentation was created depicting e-commerce processes and Request for Proposal was prepared and shared with selected vendors. Company was provided with support in evaluation of presented offers in regards to: functional fit, scalability, security, implementation timeline and capabilities as well as commercial terms of the agreement. Total cost of ownership was calculated for each of shortlisted systems and exact business case supporting the investment decision was presented to the executive team. During the implementation our expert served as a project manager supporting the company Operations and IT teams in the project delivery, providing ongoing project risk assesment, and keeping control over project timeline and budget.
Results
Within 2 months company succesfully went through selection process and implemented choosen solution within the following 6 months. The selected system enabled both D2C and B2B e-commerce orders processing, integration with 12 sales channels (own stores, marketplaces, retailers) chosen by company’s customers, as well as 8 major courier services supporting deliveries across Europe. The created 3rd party logistics service supported manufacturing business and opened company a road to creating own brand of cosmetics products sold in Direct to Consumer channel. Implemented system has open configuration with possibility to add new warehouse locations without a need for separate implementation process. Company operations team can work independently in the future in case extension of warehouse space or changes in the process will be required.
Short summary
Pharmaceutical manufacturer created 3PL subsidiary for e-commerce fulfillment. Their operations team lacked D2C experience to choose suitable Warehouse Management System. We supported selection and implementation of WMS which enables D2C and B2B order processing, integration with 12 sales channels, and 8 courier services. As a next step Client decided to create its own D2C business line of products.