Marietta, Ga.—Jan. 10, 2013— SaaS supply chain solutions provider Blue Ridge Inventory Group LLC developed the CLARITY Mobile Connect mobile application, which requires only store counts to leverage advanced planning and forecasting for replenishing retail stores.
To debut at NRF’s Retail’s Big Show, the application was designed to simplify ordering while still providing advanced inventory replenishment to improve product availability for retail chains, co-ops, franchisors and CPG brands.
Decades of experience in retail enlightened the Blue Ridge retail team to the many conditions chains experience that inhibit effective store stocks.
“Like many people in retail management, I was a store manager myself before moving to the corporate office and I’ve also consulted with hundreds of retailers—so I’ve seen what they’re facing,” said Greg White, Chief Executive Officer, Blue Ridge. “Just imagine the power this gives a convenience store chain like Circle K, a co-op like Ace Hardware or franchisors like GNC who have thousands of independently-owned stores and nearly as many approaches to store ordering.”
CLARITY Mobile Connect is designed to consider such factors as manual processes, inconsistent execution, varying store systems or varying approaches of field merchandisers; and assure common logic throughout the chain without a complex and time-consuming process in the stores.
Store associates or brand field merchandisers can use the mobile app to simply scan and count inventory to create accurate orders. The app accesses the advanced technology of CLARITY Replenish in the Cloud to forecast demand; create accurate store orders; and enable approval for the orders. Store-specific demand forecasts for each item assure the right products are available in every location, improving product availability and boosting customer loyalty.
The solution could also serve to close the gap between demand-shaping activities and effectiveness in product availability for U.S. grocers who typically don’t have store perpetual inventory, or even chains with store operations teams that need to maintain store control of the replenishment process to respond rapidly to the market. The combination of store-level intelligence and enterprise-class forecasting and replenishment disciplines enabled by the cloud helps enable both the field and the home office to coordinate and perform better.
Blue Ridge’s CLARITY Mobile Connect app will be on display at NRF’s Retail’s Big Show in New York City at the Javits Convention Center, booth C226, from January 13 to 16.
