Moving from a reseller to a seller of record model across 249 global geographies.

Synopsis

Fortune 50 company increased their online retail store footprint by transforming their business model and supply chain capabilities.

Problem Statement

The team in charge of company stores sold product directly to customers in pockets of North America but solely through resellers in all other global regions. Use of a reseller model hindered their profitability and perpetuated limitations in terms of global coverage and existing supply chain capabilities. Executives had been pressuring the Supply Chain Management teams within their Stores division, to become the seller-of-record. The Executives requested a roadmap that outlined the plan for expanding their footprint into all countries and territories across the world – a total of 249 geographies. The roadmap would need to include the order, prioritization, and timeline for each country or territory. In order to transform from a reseller business model to a seller-of-record model, a multitude of capabilities needed to be built and scaled and contracts would need to be adjusted with reseller partners. Examples of capabilities they would need to enable included managing inventory, acquiring distribution centers, setting up new supply chain processes, and identifying opportunities and partnerships to sell third party products. The first step was to identify a large, global team across multiple departments, who could align to the goal, systems, tools, and knowledge required for the expansion. The expansion also required Legal, Tax, and Trade advisement for all countries in scope, to occur within an aggressive timeline supported by the Executives.

Approach

Ten core functions within the Stores division were identified as having a role in the transformation. Each function or team was given a list of key capabilities they were responsible for enabling. For example, the Compliance team was responsible for product and regulatory compliance guidance, reviews, and policies; while the Distribution team was responsible for receiving and storing product, and their pick, pack, and ship model.  

Each of the functions had an assigned global lead and regional leads below them, who helped manage and track progress made on capabilities. Focus groups were held with each group to identify key milestones and a timeline to achieve. The information was compiled to create a roadmap that outlined the timeline for expansion into the 249 global countries and territories. Legal, Tax, and Trade teams provided input into, and final approval of, the roadmap and timeline. Kick-off Meetings were held with each region, across all ten functions, to detail the roadmap and approach and collect any feedback or considerations. Once the draft of the roadmap had been socialized with all of the functional teams, it was presented to the Executives for approval. Once approved, global weekly calls were held with capability teams, and eleven senior Executives were debriefed on a monthly basis. 21 countries were identified as high-priority and given six months to go-live.

Once teams were on-boarded to the roadmap, the ask to the Executives was to ensure the team had the budget and approval to assign a certain number of roles to be fully dedicated to the expansion project. Each region was assigned a timeline to enable their required capabilities for go-live. These timelines were published to a scorecard that was used to measure and report progress to Executives. Teams were asked to list out ~5 capability categories and capture the completion level of each category via a pie chart. In addition, the pie chart was colored red, yellow, or green to indicate the number and level of risks that team was facing. Pie charts per capability and region were aggregated and placed on Executive scorecards to provide visibility into the all-up readiness level of each region. Capability and regional pie charts were also broken down into more granular task lists, that were then plugged into project plans, and assigned to a Project Manager (PM) to coordinate for that specific region and capability. Risks were also identified, scored, and managed by the PMs. The hierarchy of PMs and tools (pie charts and project plans) allowed the team to provide quantifiable metrics when reporting out progress and allowed the team to be more efficient with their time, since the tools, processes, and scorecard approach were clear to all.

Results

• Invented a project framework and tools to measure the enablement of supply chain capabilities. These tools were leveraged for future projects of similar size and scale; and the approach was recognized as setting the bar for expectations.

• Completed a successful expansion into 21 countries within a 6 month timeframe, established lessons learned and the methodology for other countries/ territories who followed as expansion efforts continued.

• Achieved alignment to the plan with minimal confusion and push back, due to a clearly articulated business problem, a documented vision for the future, and a published break-down of required capabilities per region.

• Tools and results exceeded Executive expectations. Over the course of the following months and years, the Return on Investment (ROI) also exceeded expectations.