Course Project Essay

The purpose of this course labor movement is to address the ongoing effs surrounding my companies, REI (Recreation Equipment Inc.,) inventory management issue and to see if we buns find a software product program better suited to the companies needs. The goal is to find products quickly and efficiently. Customer satisfaction is profound to driving sales and profit in any company. As a result a software upgrade is certainly needed in mark to compete with early(a) companies in the same industry. give of the CompanyREI is a privately held corporation that is run by its portions. In fact it is considered to be one of the largest consumer co-ops in the United States. It relys on the members to drive dough individually year and cedes them the chance to both vote and serve on the board of directors. REI does not embrace to shareholders and since its founding in 1938 has never done so. Sales exceed $1 one thousand thousand dollars each year and due to that ongoing success the com pany can pay dividends to the members of the company each march.Also, contributing to the success of the company. Inventory management is extremely important as you can imagine in order to keep the members happy. REI makes it a point to track down items even if that means calling other stock certificates around the country. The reason for this is pricing and member loyalty. While the Andersons(original founders of REI) originally established the co-op structure in order to secure reduced prices for its members, REI today models itself instead as a full-service retailer, with a web site, including order-on-the-web and allow delivery to a nearby descent, rather than as a low-price retailer. (wikipedia)Business Problem StatementThe issue that I would like to address based on the retail business of REI is that of inventory management. Time is of the scent and having accurate counts is crucial to securing an item for the customer so that they do not leave your business and go elsewhe re. REIs current inventory management system is good but could be better. As it stands in a flash the inventory system is automated through the POS system. This means that when something is sold through a particular store it is automatically uploaded through the companies database so that all stores across the nation are up to date on whats avail fit at that store. However, the issue is that if a customer in our store wants a product that we do not have available, instead of being able to look into the system and see who has that product and order it directly, we have to physically has the customer to fill out a standard name, address and if a member their member number. Then we call the store have them finalize the item, give the customers payment information and aim the order for the item(s). As you can imagine this takes a lot of time in some cases and can turn a customer away.Especially, if they waited several minutes for the person on the other end to locate the product and then come back and say they cannot find it. This goes on until the item is located at a particular store. Time and resources wasted, as well as money lost. This current system does not work. It does not improve efficiency and constitutes the company a good percentage of sales in some instances. My proposal is to find an inventory management system that would provide accurate inventory and allow products to be ordered directly from the pos system without having to call store to store and place the order manually. frequently like how we can order directly from our distribution center, that is how we would order on a store to store basis.General Benefits for Company/AudienceBy taking this approach I believe that not solitary(prenominal) will the company itself benefit from the changes but the customers and employees as well. From the company side of things, they would see a high profit margin from customers who would consider placing to a greater extent orders. They would also see a drop in costs as far as employee payroll is concerned and telephone costs. Customers benefit by now having less time spent waiting for an item to be located, instead being promptly available. When this occurs they are more inclined to come back and make similar purchases instead of going elsewhere because turnaround time is much quicker with less hassle and uncertainty on their part. Employees would be able to focus more on customers in their store and less time on phone lines or tracking down products. This eliminates customer dissatisfaction in stores and allows sales to grown since more customers would stay and shop as oppose to leaving angry for lack of help.