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WHAT A SUPPLIER EXPERIENCE PORTAL CAN DO FOR YOUR BUSINESS

WHAT EXACTLY IS A SUPPLIER EXPERIENCE PORTAL (SEP)?

Put simply, a Supplier Experience Portal is an online platform that allows retailers to connect and share data with suppliers, and vice versa. More and more companies are realising the benefits of an SEP and putting these systems to good use to help them:

  • Gain a better understanding of customer habits
  • Streamline production
  • Improve stock deployment
  • Make more effective business decisions
  • Collaborate effectively through data sharing to maximise profitability

And this list is by no means exhaustive, the benefits of using such a portal for both supplier and retailer are vast.

TAKE A LOOK

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In this blog we delve in to the mutually beneficial use of a Supplier Experience Portal (SEP) and get a fascinating insight into how that looked in real life for paint and coatings company, AkzoNobel, supplier to retailer Wickes.

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A supplier’s experience of Coeus SEP
A supplier’s experience of Coeus SEP Read More
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An introduction from Yusuf
An introduction from YusufRead More
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AkzoNobel & Wickes
AkzoNobel & Wickes Read More
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Lockdown success story using Coeus
Lockdown success story using CoeusRead More
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Post lockdown analysis
Post lockdown analysis Read More
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Geo stock deployment using heat maps
Geo stock deployment using heat maps Read More
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Invaluable insight into online sales
Invaluable insight into online sales Read More
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Conclusion: Future collaboration using Coeus data
Conclusion: Future collaboration using Coeus dataRead More

A SUPPLIERS EXPERIENCE OF COEUS SEP

Wickes has been using Coeus Supplier Experience Portal since before the COVID-19 pandemic, and they used it to great effect, streamlining production, responding to rapidly changing customer and trade demands, and stealing a march on their competition during what was an incredibly volatile and challenging period. 

Lessons learnt during the pandemic have also served AkzoNobel well after, as they identified valuable trends that could be leveraged.

Yusuf
Yusuf Alharrari AkzoNobel - Wickes National Account Manager

MEET THE SUPPLIER

Yusuf Alharrari is the Wickes National Account Manager at AkzoNobel, and this is his story on the use of Coeus SEP at Wickes, who brand the Coeus solution as iSupply.

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AkzoNobel brands supplied to Wickes: Cuprinol, Hammerite, Polycell and of course giant paint brand Dulux, all staples for any DIY households in the UK.

AN INTRODUCTION FROM YUSUF

“To start with, I will give you a quick overview of who AkzoNobel are in the UK and the brands that you might recognise. 

“We've got the brilliant Cuprinol, which has been protecting British exteriors since 1911, and then we've got our specialist brands Hammerite, the metal paint, and Polycell which is perhaps the UK's best-known filler brand, and they have both been sold in the UK market since the 1960’s. But last and by no means least is Dulux, our most famous brand.

“Dulux has been sold in the UK since 1931 and is synonymous with the Old English sheepdog, nicknamed the Dulux Dog. The Dulux Dog has been with us since 1961, and has been a fantastic brand ambassador. I can tell you for a fact that he sells more paint than the entire sales team here at AkzoNobel!”

What Yusuf has to say about the Coeus system and its benefits to both Wickes and supplier, AkzoNobel:

“Coeus and data sharing allows us to spot consumer trends and shopping habits and maximise opportunities for both businesses.”

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AKZONOBEL AND WICKES

I really want to move on to how our relationship works, how we utilise the Coeus system and how this provides a win-win solution for both parties.

To start off with, I wanted to share a quote from Marissa Meyer. She was a former CEO of Yahoo and I feel like it really summarises our approach to the UK market of our brands.

“When you need to innovate, you need collaboration”
 – Marissa Meyer

At AkzoNobel, consumer insights and shopper behaviour have always been the starting point for the brand decisions in our category. Understanding the shopper habits and the needs of our consumers who engage with our brands gives us the ability to adapt and change in an ever-changing market.

Yusuf emphasises that, ultimately, it is their merchant and retail partners who ‘see first-hand changes in the dynamic in the real world’. Therefore, as a supplier, it's really key that we work closely with our retail partners, such as Wickes and that we share the data and insights enabling us to drive sales for the best return for both businesses.’
Yusuf emphasises that, ultimately, it is their merchant and retail partners who ‘see first-hand changes in the dynamic in the real world’. Therefore, as a supplier, it's really key that we work closely with our retail partners, such as Wickes and that we share the data and insights enabling us to drive sales for the best return for both businesses.’

 

“Wickes and AkzoNobel maintain a healthy collaborative relationship which, through the use of Coeus and data sharing, allows us to spot consumer trends and shopping habits and maximise opportunities for both businesses.”

So, the information we gain from Coeus ultimately supports both parties in the long run. When we need to innovate to survive or thrive in this ever-changing market, the only way we really can is to become true collaborative partners. 

Therefore, it's rather fitting that during 2020 and during the COVID-19 pandemic that really highlighted the benefit of Coeus to both our businesses. When the national lockdown was announced, foreign holidays and normal shopping habits completely changed overnight and with people having more time stuck in the house, they quickly turned their mind to those DIY projects that they had been putting off for a while.

IN SUMMARY

  • AkzoNobel use customer insight as a base for all brand decisions. However they realise that it is the retailer (in this case Wickes) who hold the majority of consumer data.
  • Sharing data and insights allows both companies to adapt to the ever-changing markets, and therefore to maximise business opportunities.
  • The use of the Coeus Supplier Experience Portal supports true collaboration (and innovation) between AkzoNobel and Wickes.

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LOCKDOWN SUCCESS USING COEUS SEP

Now, during the first lockdown, we'd already seen a massive spike in demand. With the continued lockdown regulations we were facing down a barrel of supply issues, and our factories had limited capacity due to the new social distancing measures put in place.


Ultimately though, as a chemical company, the 6,000 employees stayed at the heart of our business and that remained the primary objective. So, the challenge became: 

 

How do we continue to supply this increased demand in the market whilst adhering to the social distancing measures?

We needed to quickly prioritise our supply chain capacity and what we did was to produce a monthly wish list of SKUs that we expected our customers would require in the upcoming weeks.

 

So this really is where Coeus became pivotal for the account team. Using the daily sales function on Coeus, coupled with the live stockholding, we could see what products consumers were buying and therefore what we needed to prioritise in terms of production and supply. Every month we were required to submit a top 50 SKU list to our business for this priority production list, but we were able to add weight to our decision-making using live data over a general gut feel.

 

So this really is where Coeus became pivotal for the account team. Using the daily sales function on Coeus, coupled with the live stockholding, we could see what products consumers were buying and therefore what we needed to prioritise in terms of production and supply. Every month we were required to submit a top 50 SKU list to our business for this priority production list, but we were able to add weight to our decision-making using live data over a general gut feel.

As the pandemic continued, we were able to constantly monitor Coeus, to spot any changes in consumer purchasing habits, or even within Wickes, for any unusual spikes in certain SKUs which meant we could adapt and plan better to try and support them.

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SUCCESS STORY: A SUPPLIER PERSPECTIVE

Coeus SEP enables Wickes suppliers to achieve 137% sales uplift. Catalyst was approached by Travis Perkins to support the  roll-out of the new Coeus SEP solution, targeted at its retail arm, Wickes. The solution would enable suppliers to have greater  visibility, engagement and transparency of sales, finances, stock movement and other aspects connected to the marketing of their products across Wickes stores. To effectively provide data that validates a supplier’s position. 

SUCCESS STORY: A SUPPLIER PERSPECTIVE

Coeus SEP enables Wickes suppliers to achieve 137% sales uplift. Catalyst was approached by Travis Perkins to support the  roll-out of the new Coeus SEP solution, targeted at its retail arm, Wickes. The solution would enable suppliers to have greater  visibility, engagement and transparency of sales, finances, stock movement and other aspects connected to the marketing of their products across Wickes stores. To effectively provide data that validates a supplier’s position. 

 

“Wickes vision is to share SKU-level data on sales, stock and accounts with suppliers daily to create a collaborative culture with relationships built on trust and partnering for success.​

This gives us a triple win. A win for Wickes, a win for our suppliers, and most importantly, a win for our customers by helping us streamline our stock giving us a new level of dynamism. ​

Coeus helped us pivot during Covid-19, to streamline our stock, allowing us to achieve a 50% target of online click-and-collect, fueled by our supply chain transparency.​

We can now forecast our stock much more effectively, and when we see issues, we can act on this insight rapidly. Before Coeus SEP, we were taking a weekly report of stock, and could only execute actions on this reactively.​”

Sam Betts, Commercial Systems Manager - Wickes

POST LOCKDOWN ANALYSIS

Since coming out of lockdown, Coeus has become increasingly important. Across the roughly 1,600 SKUs that we supply to Wickes, 12 of them had never appeared in the top 25 until the lockdown was introduced, and this is likely due to various reasons, such as changing pack size for people doing bigger jobs or where other avenues weren't available to purchase paint in bulk. 

Then if we fast-forward to some of the softening of the national lockdown to the latter end of 2020, we looked again, and only 8 of the top 25 “lockdown SKUs” remained in that top 25 at that time, and this is probably because people started returning to more normal shopping habits, but there were still some nuances and smaller adaptations.

Customer-Demand-Slide

  • Focus on digitisation in the supply chain was gaining momentum pre-pandemic…​
  • The pandemic has accelerated digital adoption massively and digital practices are rapidly becoming the norm for Target Operating Models​
  • Over half of organisations see digital transformation as being more effective in today’s market
This story really shows the importance of why sharing data is so pivotal. If we had just run with our usual top 25 SKUs from 2019, we would probably be faced with even greater shortages, more missed sales opportunities, and we would have less time to adapt to these changes once we had dynamically addressed it and recognised it through our stocks..

 

This story really shows the importance of why sharing data is so pivotal. If we had just run with our usual top 25 SKUs from 2019, we would probably be faced with even greater shortages, more missed sales opportunities, and we would have less time to adapt to these changes once we had dynamically addressed it and recognised it through our stocks.

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IN SUMMARY

Sharing data between supplier and retailer is essential for:

  • Insight into even the smallest of changes in customer habits
  • Being able to be reactive to stock demand
  • Maximising sales opportunities

GEOGRAPHICAL STOCK DEPLOYMENT USING HEAT MAPS

The story doesn't just end here with front-end supply, it continues right up to the front doors of the stores. With the data from Coeus we're able to analyse shopper trends geographically across all the Wickes stores and then support Wickes for most effective distribution and deployment of our brands.

Due to the increased demand during the lockdown periods and since we had a finite capacity in our factories, some SKUs became like gold dust. 

The last thing we wanted to do was make Wickes distribute certain pallets of products up to their Inverness store when sales trends suggest they might have only been witnessing low volume demand of these SKUs but then in Wickes Plymouth, they were crying out for this stock.  


So, with store level EPOS data, were able to create heat maps where we showed the demand of our brands and SKUs. 

 

Due to the increased demand during the lockdown periods and since we had a finite capacity in our factories, some SKUs became like gold dust. 
The last thing we wanted to do was make Wickes distribute certain pallets of products up to their Inverness store when sales trends suggest they might have only been witnessing low volume demand of these SKUs but then in Wickes Plymouth, they were crying out for this stock.  
So, with store level EPOS data, were able to create heat maps where we showed the demand of our brands and SKUs. 

As this heat map example shows:

  • For our retail SKUs - we saw the biggest uplift in the South East and the Midlands.  
  • For our trade brands - unsurprisingly, we saw an increased demand in London to support the construction market.
  • With our exterior brands - we saw the biggest spike in the North. (If I'd have come to an assumption, I would have said you would have seen that in the South West).

Sharing this data back with Wickes gave them the opportunity to address the stock deployment throughout the store’s estate.

Heatmap

However, this dynamic data comprehension will give us much more insight to discuss with the commercial team moving forward into 2022, as now we have evidence of where our brands best perform in the market during peak periods.

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IN SUMMARY

  • You could be missing out on valuable sales if you rely on geographical assumptions as a basis for stock deployment
  • Get a clear understanding with real time analysis that Coeus can provide and share this data with your retailer

INVALUABLE INSIGHTS INTO ONLINE SALES

Speaking of insight and looking back at our lessons learnt during lockdown, and relating back to my original quote from Marissa Meyer: how do we innovate collaboratively with Wickes into the future?

Before 2020, paint was a product which has extremely low online sales. In 2019, less than 5% of total paint sold was sold online, which is quite mad when you think of daily shopping habits with the rise of online retailers such as Amazon.

sales-insights

This graph demonstrates the impact of changing shopper habits using online paint purchasing through Wickes. 

Online boom in paint sales!

We saw a major spike for online sales during the first lockdown announcement, and despite the green line in the chart looking like it's completely tailed off once the stores were re-opened in June 2020, trust me when I tell you that online sales are over 200% larger compared to June 2019.

 

Online boom in paint sales!
We saw a major spike for online sales during the first lockdown announcement, and despite the green line in the chart looking like it's completely tailed off once the stores were re-opened in June 2020, trust me when I tell you that online sales are over 200% larger compared to June 2019.

DID YOU KNOW?

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IN SUMMARY

Invaluable online channel performance data from Coeus SEP allowed AkzoNobel to:

  • Monitor online sales of their products at Wickes stores on a daily basis
  • Identify online sales trends
  • Be reactive to real-time shopper habits

CONCLUSION: FUTURE COLLABORATION USING COEUS DATA

It's a story that we will use moving forward when we create plans for Wickes on how we can execute the online channel more effectively asking:

  • What products are people buying online?
  • Who and where can we target?

My real ambition in the future is to grow Wickes online paint sales levels back to the ones we saw during the lockdown, but also maintain the store sales levels, increasing penetration for both. 

We now know people buy paint online, it's just they need the promotion and reasons to do so. Sharing these insights with the team at Wickes, they understood how we actually were using this data and insight, and we are therefore effectively collaborating with our partner.

 

We now know people buy paint online, it's just they need the promotion and reasons to do so. Sharing these insights with the team at Wickes, they understood how we actually were using this data and insight, and we are therefore effectively collaborating with our partner.
So that really brings me to the end of this article on why AkzoNobel utilise Coeus, the value we get from it, and how we can provide real-time data-driven insights to improve our relationship with Wickes. I would like to conclude that ultimately, it's our customers such as Wickes who retain this information, yet knowledge sharing is incredibly beneficial for both parties. 

IN SUMMARY

  • Coeus allows the free flow of information, it is near real-time and gives us the ability to draw insight and trends from this data.
  • This data is then used back with our customers, like Wickes, in daily discussions and regular planning meetings.
  • It helps us drive better and more effective commercial decisions to achieve year-on-year growth.
Yusuf
Yusuf Alharrari AkzoNobel - Wickes National Account Manager

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Yusuf Alharrari has worked for AkzoNobel since 2014. He was the Senior Customer Business Manager for Wickes Plc from 2019 – 2021. He was responsible for leading the account team responsible for Wickes (a previous subsidiary of TP PLC) and one of AkzoNobel’s largest retail customers. Yusuf lead the overall trading relationship, overseeing and managing the flagship project to improve the retail consumer’s journey in paint. He worked closely together with Wickes’ Category Buying team to ensure sustainable and profitable growth for both parties.

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