Streamlining non-merchandise procurement operations for Fortune 20 US Retail chain.

The Customer

A large, Fortune 20, Home improvement retailer based in the U.S. The client is engaged with Zensar for the last 3 years.

The Business Challenge

The client was facing issues with non-merchandising purchase requisition (PR) processing function and handling call queries from stores on the PRs raised. In the absence of a Centralized PR processing & query handling team, the PR backlogs and store complaints went high. Hence, the client wanted to improve service levels by standardizing PR queue, setting uniform business rules, reducing PR queue and gaining control over abandon call rate, average speed of answer and time spent on the call that landed for queries.

77,000 PRs to be processed annually.
US $ 4.00 Bn. annual PR value to be managed with 100% accuracy.
250 vendors to be managed across 5 countries.
3,000 vendor queries to be resolved annually.
New store openings across 3 countries; U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico.
90 new stores to be launched.

The Solution

Zensar evaluated the clients' procurement metrics and measuring systems, and developed a solution strategy to achieve the clients' vision. An assessment exercise was conducted and helped the client define future state processes.

Zensar also helped the client, as part of this exercise, in selecting the right set of planning and execution tools to enable the defined processes. An implementation roadmap was defined for deployment of various business and outsourcing initiatives to enable the vision. The process vision was based on a time-phased planning process construct.

As part of the solution development exercise, Zensar helped the client with a detailed Finance - IVR evaluation exercise where the calls hitting the procurement queue were analyzed. Zensar was also involved in the implementation of Vantive ticket-based solution. The first phase was to deploy low dollar value purchase requisition process. Subsequent phase then rolled out the deployment of high dollar value and project based purchase requisitions and setting up New Stores. After realizing the early benefits like improved service levels, backlog clearance in 4 weeks and dropped abandon call rate, the client then planned to have dedicated quality team to enhance the accuracy levels

Business Benefits

PR queue reduced from 4000 to 1000 in just 4 weeks after transition.
Average speed of answer reduced from 6:50 mins to 0:03 mins, reduced by 99%.
Abandon call rate reduced from 25% to 2% and maintained consistently, thereafter, reduced by 92%.
Improvement in accuracy level by 24% from 80% to 99%, consistently maintained thereafter.

Key value addition by Zensar

5% committed process optimization delivered Y-o-Y through our proprietary Optimization model.
23% resource optimization.
Quarterly C.Sat. Score of 4/5.
28 KPIs tracked and reported daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annually.
Leverage ERP/Product Centers of Excellence for SAP and Ariba during transition boot-camp

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