The New Future Of Traditional Channels: Information Transformation

For the survival of the enterprise channel construction, each clothing Enterprises have their own experience and experience. It is these experiences that enable enterprises to exist and develop in traditional competition. However, with the change of the mechanism of social information exchange, Administration As a whole, the competition among garment enterprises will show new characteristics and become more intense. How can garment enterprises survive in competition? How can enterprises stand out in the future competition?

For most enterprises, traditional channel Management methods and management tools have been used for many years. It is difficult to use these original technologies to improve channels. But if we focus our attention on new information technology and new methods, we should still have a lot of space to realize the optimization and upgrading of enterprise channel management, which has been fully reflected in other industries' channel management. For garment enterprises, suppose we can make use of information technology to manage the supply chain information, logistics distribution information, customer capital and credit information, channel marketing information and channel knowledge management information, and then help enterprises optimize the logistics and capital flow in the sales channel, so it is also very possible to draw up the channel management level with other enterprises.

However, the informatization of channels is not as simple as imagined. From the current situation of various garment enterprises, channel informatization is still in the exploratory stage: some enterprises try traditional chain retail business systems, such as AI's GEO system; some implement large-scale software products, such as SAP, UFIDA's distribution system, etc., some have implemented small and medium product software, such as Shanghai Bojun's E-MAX brand distribution system cooperation, some even develop customized distribution system, but so far, there is no mature solution recognized by the industry.

Based on the current situation, how should the channel informatization of clothing enterprises be planned? And how to implement it? In order to achieve real upgrading and improvement of traditional channel level. We believe that in the channel informatization project of garment enterprises, it is necessary to make clear the objectives of the project in the planning, and the right and reasonable goals are the first prerequisite for the success of the project.

Target setting of channel informatization

The construction of channel information system must first clarify the project objectives. Goals are not only the criteria for judging the success of a channel project, but also the fundamental program for resolving project conflicts. If a project has clear objectives, it is possible to achieve common goals and common interests as a platform to ensure the correct direction of the project in the event of a conflict.

Goal 1: to implement channel informatization, we must improve the efficiency of supply chain as the primary goal.

The business of domestic enterprises is mostly carried out by manual way, usually once a week or even a month. Information lag is not good for enterprises to respond to the market in time. The whole information flow is based on paper and manual reports, and its accuracy and usability are poor. Moreover, the information transmission from the channel to the enterprise management layer has to go through many links, and the data are easily distorted.

In the implementation of information projects, if we do not make targeted planning for these ways, we will only transfer these jobs to computers, convert paper media into electronic media, convert paper accounts into electronic accounts, or gather once a week, or multilevel, so that the advantages of informatization can not be brought into full play.

Foreign enterprises have many years experience in channel informatization. They can control information in real time in the channel, and make use of these information to make decisions, so that the turnover period can be greatly reduced, and even continuous sales and production can be achieved. Taking ZARA as an example, in order to ensure the speed and accuracy of information, a balanced communication method is designed in the management of channel terminals. The information of exclusive stores is transmitted to offices and headquarters by special lines. Under the premise of ensuring the management of office affairs, it also ensures the accuracy and timeliness of headquarters information. Only at the beginning of the construction of information project can the goal be determined so as to achieve good results.

Goal 2: channel informatization must focus on customer relationship planning and construction.

Customer relationship management is an important part of channel management. Information technology, because of its massive storage, computing power and cross regional characteristics, plays a very important role in establishing a customer oriented service mode, in pursuit of customer satisfaction and loyalty, and it can not be replaced by other ways.

Taking communication with customers as an example, before channel informatization work, communication management with customers depends on the consciousness of each salesperson. Visits, telephones, fax management, marketing activities management, complaint management and other businesses are all self governed, unable to see the whole process of customer and enterprise interaction and customer profile. It is very difficult to improve customer satisfaction. After implementing the channel informatization, this ill condition will be improved, the information will be organized around specific customers, and the platform of product knowledge and sales experience will be provided to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Related suggestions on channel informatization work

Recommendation 1: to build a channel information system, we must sort out and optimize the business process.

"Information system is advanced and unquestionable. Enterprises only need to use can manage well", "this system can realize the function of large area management, so our choice is correct", "feeling the stones crossing the river, we are thinking at the same time" and so on, these views have been repeatedly mentioned in the channel construction project of an enterprise. For this reason, our suggestion is that we should have a thorough and thorough understanding of our current work process, and reconsider the work process according to the characteristics of information technology. In this way, we can truly achieve the smooth flow of information through the construction of channel informatization so as to avoid the dilemma of repeated repair of information systems.

Take channel inventory management as an example, before carrying out the information work, we must make a thorough inquiry into the inventory business. There are several levels of inventory in the channel. What is the status of these inventories and whether there is any possibility of improvement or improvement in the future? Only by clearing these things can we really know how much inventory is controlled, where and where the goods are in the channel.

Recommendation 2: building a channel information system should focus on bottlenecks.

The first characteristic of channel is large quantity and many levels. A sales volume of 1 billion enterprises, the number of counters can reach 1000, the channel management level as many as 4-5. Information construction must study the accuracy of hierarchical data aggregation, and study the concurrent pressure brought by business scale to the system.

The second characteristic of channels is geographical dispersion. Clothing stores are scattered throughout the country. How to deal with the data synchronization and terminal system maintenance is the problem that must be studied in the construction of channel informatization.

The third characteristic of channel is multi brand. In order to maximize the channel profit, garment enterprises usually operate several brands at the same time. At that time, the channel information system will be required to manage the data of multiple brands simultaneously. How to manage and summarize these brand data is also a problem that should be studied.

The fourth characteristic of channels is business diversity. For example, the diversity of channel promotion types, such as discount, combined goods, buy gifts, full discount of ten kinds of discount, VIP bonus points and so on, must be well prepared before the implementation of informatization, so that it is possible to do well the informatization work of channels.

Recommendation 3: building a channel information system, we should also pay attention to the system's ease of use transformation and pre implementation training.

There is a very big difference between the channel management system and the production management system, that is, there are many users and frequent operations, so the ease of use of the system is much more important than the production management system for the channel management software. If the ease of use of the channel system is not considered enough and more than one action is taken, the cumulative annual turnover will be tens of millions of repetitions. Standing in the user's perspective, this is intolerable. The distribution software of a large channel in China once neglected the ease of use, which led to the abandonment of the whole system. Therefore, for the channel information system, we can not simply evaluate the angle of function, and put considerable effort into ease of use transformation.

The quality of the channel staff in clothing industry is uneven. The salesmen of the franchisees are not even able to use the mouse. They often feel helpless because of some small problems in the computer, thus affecting their normal work. In order to improve this situation, we must strengthen the training work and carry out activities of mutual aid and mutual learning. Only in this way can we truly move the channel.

Channels are the tentacles for enterprises to face the market. An effective marketing channel often changes with the market changes. It is this change that results in the diversification of marketing modes, the richness of marketing activities and the variability of channels. On the one hand, these characteristics are the advantages of enterprises and deserve to be carried forward. On the one hand, they also challenge the informatization of clothing channels. From the industry point of view, the clothing channel management system is no less difficult than any commercial chain organization.