How to easily scale your mobile workforce and devices for the peak shopping season
Retailers are under constant pressure to streamline processes and become more efficient while looking for ways to improve customer satisfaction levels. These challenges are heightened during the lead-up to the festive season when the flow of goods in and out of Distribution Centres (DCs) and stores increases, and processes and workflows are put under strain.
Coming out of the pandemic, many retailers are trying to maintain lean operations to help speed up business recovery and struggling to find enough workers to meet demand. The outcome is that these businesses generally run a core team of full-time staff throughout the year, but then they will look to employ seasonal workers on a short-term basis to meet the demands of the industry’s traditional peak season.
While this process allows businesses to manage staff costs throughout the year, it unfortunately also puts pressure on retailer and DC managers to ensure short-term workers understand the processes and technologies and can operate as accurately and efficiently as permanent employees.
Given the heightened activity many retail and warehouse environments experience in the lead-up to the peak shopping season, and the challenges around trying to incorporate less experienced seasonal workers, what should Australian businesses know to help them prepare?
Utilise technology to improve processes
Regardless of if a DC is operating in a quiet or busy period, the practice of processing an order and shipping the right product at the right time to the right destination remains the same. In periods of peak operation, the pressure to ensure accurate orders are being distributed is heightened.
Returned incorrect or incomplete orders must be repacked and redistributed, which impacts customer satisfaction, with 63% of customers wanting improvements to the returns and delivery processes in retail and 67% wanting real-time visibility into their Christmas orders from the moment they are processed.
Warehouse stocking, order fulfilment and backend order processes all need to be robust enough to handle a huge ramp up in demand. This demand spans many operational departments, and technology needs to be implemented across as range…