Retail & Asset Solutions (RAS) - Setting an Industry Standard

B U S I N E S S I N T E RV I E W

Faisal Ashfaq, Head of Supply Chain Management at Retail & Asset Solutions (RAS), explains why the company has attained major dominance in its market segment. etail & Asset Solutions (RAS), part of the Asset Solutions Group, manages stock integrity and assets predominantly in the retail market.

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There are four divisions, which Faisal Ashfaq, Head of Supply Chain Management at RAS, outlines as follows:

1. Retail and Pharmacy Stocktaking – counting within stores and warehouses 2. RFID – adding next-level technology to stock counts 3. Merchandising – taking the stock from the back door of the store to the shelves 4. Supply Chain

"We make sure the pinch points are monitored and audited for performance, ensuring that the right stock gets to the right place, at the right time, in the right quantity (the 4R’s)" Faisal explains, “The division that I manage is Supply Chain.

It is about making sure the integrity of the stock is correct throughout the supply chain from supplier, as it goes through the retailer’s supply chain network, to the back door of the store.

Our experience gained from a combined total of over 100,000 hours spent auditing within supply chain highlights that there 4

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are several common pinch points within this journey where there is the opportunity for things to go wrong. We make sure the pinch points are monitored and audited for performance, ensuring that the right stock gets to the right place, at the right time, in the right quantity (the 4R’s).”

The Supply Chain division at RAS has been going strong for over 20 years. Faisal puts it down to the company’s ethos of understanding its customers and working together with them. He adds, “Our retention is almost 100 per cent as far as value of service and service delivery are concerned. The services we offer are bespoke to each of the customer’s requirements.”

According to Faisal, all the services offered are based on four core workstreams within supply chain:

1. Goods coming out from the supplier and into the retailer (inbound) 2. Stock that is picked by the retailer, broken down into smaller handling units and sent out to the stores (picker accuracy) 3. Stock that is marshalled and loaded onto the lorry 4. Deliveries direct to the store

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Faisal continues, “Each four points of the journey has the ability to cause negative impacts to store stock files and consumer availability. Our experience over the last 20 years has taught us that the numbers are not as important as understanding the root cause of the problem.

We work closely with our customers to resolve any root cause and validate the solution.

The importance we put on relationships has enabled us to attain dominance in the market.

We are the only organisation that provides an end-to-end service in the UK and Europe.”

Historically, suppliers delivered stock to retailers, and retailers checked it themselves, notifying the supplier if a delivery was short. If the supplier believed the delivery was accurate, then a debate might ensue. RAS took the goods-in concept and added an element of faith. Faisal explains, “As an independent party, we check a 5 per cent sample of stock and inform both the retailer and the supplier of the error rate immediately, with the option to query the result. Because an independent party is checking the delivery, the retailer pays immediately in good faith, and

"The importance we put on relationships has enabled us to attain dominance in the market. We are the only organisation that provides an end-to-end service in the UK and Europe" the supplier takes the bill in good faith. However, if at the end of the cycle we identify that there was a 1 per cent error rate in the sample we have checked, the supplier pays that charge back to the retailer without argument, assuming the 1 per cent error was across the 95 per cent of stock that wasn’t audited.”

This concept is known as Good Faith Receiving (GFR). It is acknowledged by the Groceries Code Adjudicator (GCA), and the concept supports the Groceries Supply Code of Practice (GSCoP) for its fairness to both supplier and retailer. Faisal adds, “In the last five years, the majority of the top 10 retailers in the UK are solely

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using GFR as a function for goodsin. It was this single service that created an industry standard and dominance in the market.”

RAS worked with a number of their customers on this program, Sainsbury’s being the first major retailer to help create the initial process. Faisal says, “RAS and Sainsbury’s worked on the concept

"We would not have been able to attain an industry standard without having customers that want to work alongside us, whilst also giving us the opportunity to work with them" together. It became the world’s longest pilot, as we were still in a preliminary phase after three years. We tweaked and improved the program as more retailers came on board, taking a lot of learnings from our customers along the way.”

Faisal believes you cannot be successful without working alongside respected customers.

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He continues, “We would not have been able to attain an industry standard without having customers that want to work alongside us, whilst also giving us the opportunity to work with them. It is a two-way relationship – they give us the opportunity and we give them valuable data and insight with return on that investment. When it comes to GFR, you are making the supply chain faster, more efficient, and more accurate. And when it comes to picker accuracy, we are telling the retailer why things are going wrong so they can do something about it.”

Speaking about last-mile deliveries, Faisal highlights the importance of the last 30 per cent of the supply chain, which is unique to each customer’s requirements. He explains, “As an industry, it is not just one check in isolation, but a series of checks within the supply chain that must be done at the same time. Imagine a pipe that carries water containing several leaks. If you put your finger over the first hole, it will not stop the subsequent leaks, but the water will flow out faster from the other holes. Similarly, you have got to have a solution for all of the pinch

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points or the loss and shrinkage will continue.

“If I am checking picker accuracy across a pallet, I am looking for the odd over or short. However, if the entire pallet or cage is in the wrong marshalling lane and put on the wrong lorry, the impact would

of its partner, Denso Wave. He elaborates, “We thrive on using the latest technology, providing our customers with the smartest solutions available in the market.

There is a big difference between a handheld scanner that takes three attempts to scan a barcode, and a scanner that takes the

“We thrive on using the latest technology, providing our customers with the smartest solutions available in the market” be potentially 20-50 cases. It’s important to have the stock there to pick in the first place, but it is more important to manage the last mile because this has the ability to make the greatest negative impact. If a cage destined for store A ended up at store B, store A’s system will think the stock is there and store B’s won’t. Working in reverse and putting emphasis on the last mile has more beneficial impact than working on the first mile.”

RAS heavily relies on upward relationships with its customers, which Faisal says would not be possible without the support

barcode in an instant regardless of angle, and Denso provides us with this technology. Customers often come to us with a problem that requires quick mobilisation and Denso helps us deliver the latest technology on time, which is invaluable in terms of our delivery onwards.”

Faisal considers audits to be essential to ascertaining performance and understanding where your problems lie. He explains, “If a buyer asks a supplier to send 10 cases of apples, but the supplier only sends eight cases, the retailer loses out on two fronts – firstly, the store only receives eight 11

when they need 10 cases, and secondly, the retailer paid the supplier for 10 but only received eight. The supplier performance therefore needs to be managed, but it works both ways. The supplier might send too much stock and if it is a short-life product, it will go to waste, and we are all extremely conscious about food wastage.”

"We regularly take a long, hard look at ourselves and ask how we can innovate and be more effective in terms of our service types and delivery" Referring back to the example of the pallet put in the wrong marshalling lane and going on the wrong lorry, Faisal continues, “If the audit is not there, you do not have the opportunity to correct errors in real time. In cases where it cannot be corrected, we provide the root causes for customers, underpinned by the intelligence, in order that they can make key changes within their business operations.”

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There is not an organisation in the world that was not affected by Covid, and RAS was no different.

Faisal remembers, “We had to be extremely agile. The majority of our business is in retail, food, fashion and apparel. The latter took a back seat, and food became the commodity during the lockdowns.

Retailers came under immense pressure to feed the nation, hence they did not want us to perform audits and hold up operations at this time, so the division downed tools to help them get the stock out

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of the door quickly and accurately.

It is this ability to work alongside retailers and on the same page that helped them through this difficult time.”

One of the reasons why RAS is the only end-to-end provider of its kind in the UK is down to its strength in innovation. Faisal explains, “We regularly take a long, hard look at ourselves and ask how we can innovate and be more effective in terms of our service types and delivery. We recently launched

Prosper, an in-house bespoke nextgeneration audit data capture and analysis platform. It has been a significant investment over the last two years. The customer now has the ability to not only view the results, but understand why the issue occurred and then manage performance – all in real time.”

Looking ahead to the future, Faisal concludes, “There are some very exciting times ahead in terms of visibility and transparency. RAS is working on an API solution with our

partners Entopy to give end-toend visualisation, which offers real-time insights across the whole delivery journey across multiple organisations. It is readily available to implement today, and will eradicate most of your shrinkage or loss in an instant.

The technology is there to offer possibilities both in and outside of retail. It will be interesting to see where this technology goes!”

For further information, visit www.retailassetsolutions.com

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www.retailassetsolutions.com

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