Is An Enterprise System In Your Future?

Imagine a computer system that “runs” your company. Low on product? It orders more. It tells your employees when to stock shelves. If they need to assemble products, or bake bread, it tells them how and when. It extends credit; decides whose check to accept; and, duns slow paying customers. It tells you which products to drop and when to add another; which customers to give special pricing, and for which to raise prices.

A vision of the future? Not at all. “Enterprise systems” have done this and more for years. Sometimes they can “look-like” Star Wars — machine generated voices make cell phone calls to truck drivers on the Autobahn telling them to pull over for a cup of coffee when the warehouse trailer yard is jammed.

Certain software companies, such as SAS and INFORM, grew large selling special software — “enterprise software” — which dramatically reduces the cost and time needed to set-up enterprise systems. Even so, setting-up enterprise systems has been costly — $750,000 to more than $100 million.

Part of the difficulty is that setting-up a Mercedes plant is entirely different than setting-up a Boeing, or a Safeway, or a corner grocer. Done right, enterprise systems revolutionize operations. Head counts drop. Wastage plummets. Machines run routine operations. People deal with exceptions. Management focuses on converting exceptions into routine. Systems and people work and think realtime.

Folks charged with setting-up enterprise systems, must appreciate not only how a company runs now — but also how it “should run;” and, how to overcome culture shock and vigorous internal resistance. Such work earns Anderson and other consulting firms substantial fees.

Wal*Mart spends roughly $1.5 million per store for enterprise systems — five times what Safeway spends on in-store systems. Wal*Mart’s enterprise system automatically places orders shortly before each supplier’s delivery cut-off so that order quantities are as accurate as possible. Without a system, Safeway places orders by manually counting shelves during work lulls — which increases inventory overages and outages.

The rewards are worth the effort. Over the last decade, Wal*Mart’s grocery sales grew to $65 billion — twice the sales of the largest supermarket chain; and, are projected to double over the next 5 years. Supermarkets — none of which have enterprise systems or realtime — lost $18 billion in marketshare and suffered a 20% profit drop over the same decade.

Realtime at Wal*Mart lets Procter & Gamble put stock in Wal*Mart stores on consignment — with payment made as products are scanned at registers. The payoff? Billions less of inventory on Wal*Mart’s books. And, higher sales from better selection and fewer outages.

Wal*Mart is now positioned to link its internal inventory to the Internet. The linkage will let customers browse before visiting stores, confirm that what they need is on the shelf, and search for alternatives.

MicroNEX helps companies quickly implement enterprise systems at dramatic savings. Its enterprise software is already set-up as grocery industry enterprise systems for two segments: CRISP for supermarket chains; and, CRISP-sm for neighborhood grocers and convenience stores.

Both packages include data bases, work rules, and reporting specific to the two segments. With the set-up previously done, MicroNEX can install enterprise systems in retail stores for approximately the same cost as a legacy point-of-sale system.

More importantly, MicroNEX personnel bring the only appreciable grocery in-store enterprise system experience, found outside Wal*Mart, to help companies fully and quickly exploit potential benefits.