In order for a retailer company like the ValueMags team to understand how to save valuable time in the company and put it somewhere else instead, they need to understand exactly how major logistics functions work. Since the ValueMags company also distributes the magazines they sell it is important for them to understand the major logistics functions in order to be sure that everything gets done correctly. The major logistics functions they need to look out for are warehousing, inventory management transportation and logistic information management.
Warehousing:
Warehousing is where the ValueMags company is able to store all of the magazines they manufacture but in this case it is a smaller warehouse where they have numerous magazines stored until they get delivered. All of their magazines need to get stored in a warehouse in order to temporarily have them somewhere while their consumers order their products. Warehousing is about the production and consumption cycles rarely matching so most companies need to store their goods in a warehouse.
Inventory Management:
Inventory management is important for ValueMags team to master in order for them to provide good customer service to their clients and have the merchandise in stock. Inventory management affects the customer satisfaction; it all depends on if you have the product in stock and if you don’t, how long they will receive the magazines they ordered in this case.
Transportation:
The choice of transportation carriers affects the pricing of products, delivery performance, and the condition of goods when they arrive, all of which will affect the customer satisfaction. In shipping goods to its warehouses, dealers and customers the company can choose among five main transportation modes which n includes the following: truck, rail, water, pipeline, and air along with an alternative mode for digital products the Internet. Normally the ValueMags team’s distributors do this through trucks.
Logistics Information:
For the logistic information, any company needs to manage their supply chains through information. Channel partners often link up to share information and make better joint logistics decisions. From a logistics perspective, flows of information, such as customer transactions, billing, shipment and inventory levels, and even customer data, are closely linked to channel performance. A busy company like ValueMags needs simple, accessible, fast and accurate processes for capturing, processing and sharing channel information. Oftentimes, suppliers are asked to generate orders and arrange for deliveries for their customers and this is the case with ValueMags.
