Performance Management Solution for Wholesale Distributors Debuts

Solution from Salient focuses on increased revenue, margin growth, cash management and effective inventory management

Solution from Salient focuses on increased revenue, margin growth, cash management and effective inventory management

Horseheads, NY — July 18, 2006 — Performance management specialist Salient Corporation has launched a new solution for the wholesale distribution space, promising to help companies improve their bottom lines by providing real-time, business-critical supply chain data in an intuitive format that enables managers to make better daily decisions.

Salient said that the new Performance Management for Wholesale Distribution solution can be installed within a company's existing infrastructure and can provide immediate return on investment by leveraging existing data sources. The solution is designed to give decision makers real-time information to help them make better decisions about pricing, logistics, marketing, financial projection, budgeting, delivery and warehousing, according to the solution provider.

The solution aims to give companies visibility into margin growth through management of unprofitable products, customers and channels by doing analysis of products, customers, and sales areas at any level, from customer-specific to regional, to company-wide. The solution also can help increase revenues for each customer relationship by allowing companies to maximize on-time deliveries, realize deadlines, increase opportunity visibility and proactive pricing strategies, Salient said.

Drilling into the Data

"Salient brings a radical innovation in how companies investigate data," said Larry Beutel, vice president of the Salient Performance Management Group. "Using our solution, our clients can ignore the otherwise overwhelming time barriers to drilling into data and understanding root causes. At the same time, we take this task off of analysts and IT staff persons and give the capability to managers and executives in a solution that they can easily understand and manipulate."

In addition, the solution is designed to help companies protect their inventory investments through more effective asset management tools to reduce carrying costs and improve productivity. Financial departments and senior management can use the solution to forecast and budget on-demand without waiting for period delays, according to Salient. This means the ability to determine operating profit level, as opposed to gross profit, and the ability to manage the cash to cash cycle.

Reducing Working Capital

Salient said that Performance Management utilizes existing corporate data, protecting investments in, and further leveraging, enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) and data warehouse deployments.

"Using Salient Performance Management has allowed our organization to significantly improve margins and save on inventory costs," said Brian Williamson, controller at Salient customer SLI Lighting. "The real-time information we get from Salient's solution is a part of the reason we see significant profitable growth for SLI in the coming year."

According to Williamson, the solution has helped SLI reduce working capital and improve cash flow by $1 million.


Additional Articles of Interest

— How do you avoid losing a limb as you're working with new technologies? A supply chain icon offers his take on this conundrum. Read more in "Executive Memo: Stepping into the Deep Water," in the February/March 2006 issue of Supply & Demand Chain Executive.

— To build a competency in supply network design, this consumer products company first had to build confidence. Read more in "Designing the Best Supply Chain Gillette Can Get," in the February/March 2006 issue of Supply & Demand Chain Executive.
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