Wholesaler's IT Policy and Strategy in Competition with Retail Clients

This case study examines the challenges wholesalers face due to increasing competition from retail clients, who demand faster delivery, impose penalties for late shipments and inaccurate information, and are increasingly buying directly from manufacturers, bypassing wholesalers altogether. To survive, wholesalers need strategic planning and technology investments that enable them to understand issues quickly and develop competitive advantages. The case highlights the importance of inventory management software, such as SageX3, for automating distribution elements, tracking stock in warehouses, and managing lot tracking to monitor products from supplier to customer. By implementing these technologies, wholesalers can improve efficiency, reduce costs, and maintain a competitive edge in the evolving market. Desklib provides access to this case study and many other solved assignments to aid students in their learning journey.

Running head: IT POLICY AND STRATEGY
IT POLICY AND STRATEGY
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1IT POLICY AND STRATEGY
A Wholesaler Finds Himself in Competition With Retail Clients
Summary of the case study
As per the title of the case study it is seen that wholesalers are finding themselves in
competition with the retail clients to a great extent. The wholesalers are being seen facing a lot of
challenges (Boyd-Barrett,2013). Retailers are often demanding for a high speed delivery which is
one forming one of the major challenges being faced by the wholesalers. The retailers are setting
tough and strict deadlines of delivery and they are providing much stiff penalties on the
wholesalers if there are any late shipments. There are also possibilities that the wholesalers are
even fined for giving or delivering inaccurate or incorrect information about the product (Ter
Braak, Dekimpe & 2013). They are finding themselves as a middle men between the retailers
and the manufacturers. This is because retailers are wanting to pay as much less as it could be
possible for meeting the all-time increasing demands form their customers and the manufacturers
are wanting to increase prices as much they can as the prices for commodity and cost are
continuously rising. It is being observed nowadays that the manufacturers are shipping a large
number of goods from them to the customers or the retailers directly instead of sending them via
the wholesalers (Arráiz, Henríquez,& Stucchi, 2013). They are totally bypassing the distribution
channel of the wholesalers. Huge retailers like that of Home Depot or Costco are buying a large
part of their merchandise or goods from the manufacturers directly and bypassing the distributer
of wholesaler altogether. This is because these mega retailers are buying large quantities of
goods and operating the warehouses of their own and thus they are not needing the wholesale
distributers. It has also been seen that such megastores and warehouses are taking the share of
market from some other retail clients at high speed and are recently accounting for about much

2IT POLICY AND STRATEGY
more than sixty percent of the general sales of goods stores (Weigelt, 2013). There is a huge need
of the wholesale distributers to properly focus on planning in a strategic manner about the way
the wholesalers respond to the up growing challenges with results or solutions that may create a
competitive advantage within the market. For surviving and thriving in the very new and
changing environment the wholesalers must make investments based on technology which may
quickly depict and understand what the issue is actually and create solutions to the problem by
taking several actions which may develop a competitive advantage within the market.
Technologies enhancing the business in the case study
Inventory Management Software
Wholesale distributers are known to occupy a position in between the manufacturers and the
customers and it has been advantageous for a number of years (Norrid,2013). This position has
been seen to be threatened by the competition faced against the retail clients. With the help of
this inventory management software for automating several distribution elements, the retailers
sets a number of points of reorder which automatically lets the wholesalers know when any
particular item or good needs to be restocked and when that item is to be delivered and finally
develop an advantage over the system of the market of the wholesalers.
SageX3
It has been a great problem and one of the biggest issues to keep track of what is actually present
in the warehouses especially in the situations when stock is constantly moving. In such cases
software like SageX3 are responsible for providing an enhanced and much more efficient result.
It is also responsible for providing a solution which will be cost effective as well (Chalotra,
2013). It will allow to keep a track of the goods on more than one devices at a time as it will be
based in the cloud. This actually means that all the changes can be updated on a database which

3IT POLICY AND STRATEGY
will be totally online and will be accessible by anyone in the business, despite of the location
wherever they are.
Lot Tracking
Lot Tracking forms an integral part of the inventory management. It is also referred to as batch
tracking which allows the business for tracking specific and particular lots or products from the
supplier directly to the customer. Lot tracking is responsible for tracking records of those
customers who receives special amount of products or lots of product and keeping records of the
date when the items were purchased and also records of the suppliers who purchased.

4IT POLICY AND STRATEGY
References
Arráiz, I., Henríquez, F., & Stucchi, R. (2013). Supplier development programs and firm
performance: evidence from Chile. Small Business Economics, 41(1), 277-293.
Boyd-Barrett, O. (2013). Multinational news agencies. In Multinational Service Firms (RLE
International Business) (pp. 123-147). Routledge.
Chalotra, V. (2013). Inventory management and small firms growth: An analytical study in
supply chain. Vision, 17(3), 213-222.
Norrid, J. A. (2013). U.S. Patent No. 8,364,507. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office.
Ter Braak, A., Dekimpe, M. G., & Geyskens, I. (2013). Retailer private-label margins: The role
of supplier and quality-tier differentiation. Journal of Marketing, 77(4), 86-103.
Weigelt, C. (2013). Leveraging supplier capabilities: The role of locus of capability
deployment. Strategic Management Journal, 34(1), 1-21.