Are you ready for Peak?

Peak Season Performance Quiz

The Deposco team conducted a comprehensive study with retailers, CPG manufacturers, wholesalers and 3PL/4PLs to discover the priorities, concerns and strategies that contribute to peak season success. Through our analysis, we have identified three key pillars that indicate that businesses are poised to achieve optimal performance and emerge successfully from the peak season.

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Peak Season Performance Quiz

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December 2024

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Three Pillars of Peak Season Performance

We identified the key pillars that drive Peak Season Performance.

Click the icons below to see how you perform in each.

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Are you ready for Peak?
Based on our analysis of your performance across the three pillars of Peak Season Performance, we have identified areas where there is room for improvement.

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Analytical features, enabled quickly by your WMS software platform, should allow quick review of legacy processes and systems. A plethora of integrated, automated solutions are available to reduce manual work and bring in data-driven speed and efficiency.
Data analytics can be leveraged to identify bottlenecks, test innovations and refine processes to speed value and support change. Reducing your reliance on manual processes and embracing scalable solutions that can integrate with your existing investments will deliver the flexibility and speed to value that you need.
Key Metrics
Cost per Order
This calculates the average cost involved in processing, fulfilling, and delivering a single customer order. This metric encapsulates various cost components like labor, materials, shipping, and overheads. Understanding this cost is vital for profitability analysis and optimizing the overall supply chain process.
You can't improve what you don't measure. Optimizing costs while providing high service is a balancing act. Having a system in place to monitor this can help identify cost-saving opportunities and unlock new revenue streams.
Improvement Opportunities
Improvements to Cost per Order in the order fulfillment process are achieved in part through automation. Removing repetitive tasks frees up your resources to deliver more value to your customers. Consider a WMS that helps you manage labor and shipping costs through rate shopping, automated cycle counts and other value-pumping features.
Order to Delivery Cycle Time
This is the duration from the moment an order is placed until it is received by the customer. The shorter the cycle time, the more efficient your supply chain is, thereby enhancing customer satisfaction and market responsiveness.
An order fulfillment platform reduces cycle times and enhances cash flow, which improves customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention. A faster order cycle time is one of the most important competitive differentiators in the market today.
Improvement Opportunities
Improve visibility and scrutiny of each step in the order fulfillment process. Choose a software provider that eliminates manual steps and uses real-time tracking to monitor order status and attack exceptions.
Order Entry Time
Order Entry Time refers to the time taken to enter an order into the system once received from the customer. This is often the first step in the supply chain and sets the pace for subsequent activities like order processing, fulfillment, and delivery. In other words, the faster that orders are entered in the system, the faster customers receive their orders. Order entry efficiency shortens the order to delivery cycle times, positively impacting profitability, customer service, and speed to value.
Improvement Opportunities
Streamlining the order entry process is accomplished through automation. Implementing an Order Management System (OMS) that can receive orders directly through multiple channels and marketplaces can significantly reduce your order entry times.
System Uptime
This represents the amount of time that digital systems, servers, or networks are operational and available for use. Uptime is usually represented as a percentage of total operational time over a specified period. In the context of supply chain management, system uptime is crucial for ensuring that all logistical and operational aspects run smoothly without interruption. Downtime can result in a myriad of issues ranging from delayed orders to communication breakdowns and customer dissatisfaction.
Improvement Opportunities
In the past, system uptime involved hardware maintenance, software updates and redundancy planning. Advanced monitoring tools are available to alert when intervention is needed, which accelerates business value across the board.

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Do you have the right key performance indicators (KPIs) necessary to optimize your supply chain, providing the right product in the right place at precisely the right time? For this, consider leveraging a product stack that includes a single data structure that allows real-time information sharing. Consider leveraging AI, Machine Learning algorithms, and predictive analytics to enhance KPIs such as forecast accuracy and resource allocations.
An end-to-end supply chain tool provides comprehensive visibility and insights into each operational area and touchpoint, allowing you to understand the impact across your entire supply chain. This gives you the ability to verify that your supply network provides the right process rigor, agility, and connectivity to meet customer demands ahead of changes impacting the new season.
Key Metrics
Forecast Accuracy
Accurate forecasting is a cornerstone of effective supply chain management. Forecast Accuracy is the degree of closeness between the forecasted demand and inventory actually available to promise (ATP). This metric is crucial as it directly impacts sales, costs, and customer experiences. A high degree of accuracy leads to optimized stock levels and minimizes both overage and shortage scenarios, contributing to lean operations and satisfied customers. Inaccurate forecasts can have a cascading effect on various aspects of your supply chain operations, ranging from inflated inventory carrying costs to missed revenue opportunities and customer churn.
Improvement Opportunities
Enhance Forecast Accuracy by utilizing a supply chain platform that automates the heavy math behind it all. Tools that show you what inventory you have, where it is, and where there’s demand for it will prevent costly mismanagement of inventory while automating rote workflows.
Stockouts
Not just an operational hiccup, stockouts significantly impair your organization's reputation and customer loyalty. When an item is unavailable in inventory at the time of ordering, it can significantly erode customer trust and sales. The modern consumer has multiple shopping channels at their disposal, and out-of-stock situations provide them with a compelling reason to switch loyalties.
Improvement Opportunities
Software that provides real-time inventory tracking, demand forecasting, and directed cycle counts can significantly reduce stockout occurrences by offering insights that help teams plan better based on demand and supplier lead times.
Supplier Lead Times
Supplier Lead Time is the duration it takes for an order to be delivered by a supplier once a purchase order has been placed. This metric is vital because it significantly affects inventory levels and the ability to meet customer demands in a timely manner. Prolonged lead times force you to carry excess inventory to avoid stockouts, which in turn raises your holding costs. One way to combat increased supplier lead time is to be prepared with a supply chain platform with the capability to onboard new suppliers quickly and easily.
Improvement Opportunities
Visibility and communication are key. Work to establish real-time collaboration channels with your suppliers. Consider advanced technology that can automate the reordering process based on real-time data.
Fill Rates
Fill Rate refers to the percentage of customer orders that can be fulfilled from existing inventory without backorders or stockouts. This metric is a critical indicator of customer service levels and overall supply chain efficiency. Low fill rates not only result in immediate lost sales, but can also cause long-term damage to brand loyalty and reputation.
Improvement Opportunities
Increasing fill rates often requires multi-pronged efforts — ranging from improved visibility to system-directed tasks that drive efficiencies. Advanced analytics can help identify the root causes of low fill rates.

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Warehouse operations should be optimized to improve user satisfaction and cost competitiveness without compromising quality. Provide visibility to processes, directed activities and the ability to expand to productivity-driving solutions, like robotics, to ensure effectiveness even in our challenging labor reality.
By implementing a scorecard system, you can view key sourcing metrics side-by-side to determine providers that are aligned with your vision of success.
Streamline your transportation and sourcing by investigating a tool that facilitates carrier and route selection and integration, helping you deliver on time, every time and manage the sourcing processes you need to be successful.
Key Metrics
Order Accuracy
Order Accuracy refers to the percentage of orders that are processed, picked, packed, and delivered without errors. This metric is of vital importance because inaccuracies can lead to a plethora of issues such as returns, refunds, and customer dissatisfaction, all of which complicate decisions, bearing cost implications and erosion of your brand reputation.
Inaccurate orders don't just result in financial losses; they erode customer trust and can lead to negative reviews that influence future sales. Thus, high order accuracy should be a top priority, and it's worth investing in.
Improvement Opportunities
Improving order accuracy may require investing in warehouse management software that simplifies work by incorporating real-time tracking and system-directed validation mechanisms. Staff training is also vital, and frequent audits should be conducted to identify points in the process where complex decisions and manual processes are causing inaccuracies.
Inventory Turns
Inventory Turns describe how many times a company's inventory is sold and replaced over a specific timeframe. A higher turnover rate often signifies effective inventory management and healthy sales, whereas a lower rate could indicate overstocking or sluggish sales.
Low inventory turns not only tie up capital but also increase carrying costs, including storage, insurance, and potential obsolescence. An optimal inventory turnover rate is critical for financial health and operational efficiency.
Improvement Opportunities
Improve inventory turns by optimizing your purchase cycles, reducing lead times, and improving demand forecasting. Employ real-time analytics to identify slow-moving items and devise strategies like discounts, personalization, or bundling to move them faster.
Lead Time Accuracy
This compares the estimated lead time against the actual time taken for a product to move through the supply chain, from initial order to final delivery. Accurate lead times are crucial for efficient inventory management and for meeting customer expectations regarding product availability and delivery.
To improve lead time accuracy, invest in tools that drive visibility and collaboration between you and your suppliers. It’s important to note that most ERP or CRM inventory fulfillment modules do not support this like a dedicated, modern system. Inaccurate lead times can have a domino effect, leading to challenges to safety stock levels, backorders and lost sales. Investing in order fulfillment software with real-time inventory tracking and tightly integrated planning like Deposco can significantly improve lead time accuracy.
Improvement Opportunities
Consistent communication with suppliers with a real-time, data-driven approach can help pinpoint communication, assumptions or bottlenecks that could be leading to discrepancies from expected and actual.

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Peak Season Performance Quiz

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Peak Season Performance Quiz

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Three Pillars of Peak Season Performance

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