why training?
A sincere hardworking merchant in an export house typed 0.059 instead of 0.59 while populating a cost sheet. A very innocuous error which went unnoticed by everyone who studied the cost sheet. The parties concerned in the deal ended up leaving $ 27000 on the table as the order eventually turned out to be a 50,000 pcs order. Do you know how much money you organization might have left on the table like this ?
You know if a PO shipped by air on your account due to delivery delay, you are in for huge losses. You have set strict ‘no air freight’ policies. You have incentives attached to 'on time' shipping. You are even proud of your on time performance. But have you wondered why the profit margins are not increasing beyond a certain level ? Did you end up doing so much crisis management during the order process to make that order ship on time that eventually it costed you dearly?
You have been focusing on productivity enhancement of your production lines. You have invested in state of the art technologies, software and machines and even invested a lot in training the shop floor staff from production managers to supervisors to operators. But hold your breath ! out of the 101 steps which comprise an order cycle, starting from step 1 – designers visti the trend fairs to step 101 – goods shipped out of your door, there are 85 steps which are part of the pre production merchandising function. When was the last time you invested in improving the skills of people manning these 85 steps, the merchants in your organization ?
You spend big money on your US / Europe trip and come back satisfied with great buyer meetings. You are wondering though why the conversion to new business was so low ? You are just one contact point through which your customer experience your organization. The memory that the buyer will retain about ‘ how / what its like to do business with your company depnds on the millions of interactions and transactions that happen between your buyer and your company via the merchandisers. To invest in improving their skills could impact your bottomline indeed.