Retailer Strategies: How to Increase Consumer Value While Improving Net Profitability

What are leading distribution companies doing to improve their bottom line profits? During the past ten years, Acorn Systems has worked with over one hundred distribution companies in more than ten industry segments. While we would like to claim that all of these projects were universal successes, the fact is that some achieved more impact than others.

What separates companies who achieved superior profit improvement from those who did not? The actions they took to improve profitability, based on the right insight.

First: Define Your Profit Improvement Strategy

By using a Profit Improvement Roadmap (Exhibits 1a and 1b), determine what profit improvement strategy is best for your company. We have analyzed the track record of over 100 distribution clients to realize that three factors play an important role: Information Quality, Organizational Capabilities and Alignment, and Market Power. This tool will ask you to assess your company’s capacities in these areas. Do you have good data and strong organizational buy-in, and can you affect change within your market? The framework then points you in the general direction of the path that may work best for your company. How aggressive can you be? What are your next steps? What actions are best for you?

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