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Good-bye Excel chaos! Become a digital champion

with the right supply chain software

Barkawi Management ConsultantsMunich • Atlanta • Dubai • Riyadh • Shanghai • Shenzhen • Vienna

A software decision made easy: How companies gradually transform the challenges of modern supply chains into measurable results using a software concept tailored to their individual needs

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Authors

More publications by Barkawi Management Consultants

Carena Barkawi, Owner and Managing PartnerTogether with Karim Barkawi, Carena Barkawi has been joint owner and mana-ging partner of the multiple-award-winning Munich-based consultancy Barkawi Management Consultants for many years now. Barkawi Management Consul-tants is part of the Barkawi Group. Carena Barkawi is CEO of the parent company and holding.

Dr. Andreas Baader, Managing PartnerDr. Andreas Baader heads our After Sales Service division. Before joining Barkawi Management Consultants in 2000, Andreas Baader held various executive positions at SAP AG, most recently managing the Application Design Sales Support division there. Andreas Baader studied engineering and wrote his doctorate in the field of aerospace technology.

Barkawi Impact Story Special: DOKA With its more than 160 sales and logistics venues in more than 70 countries, DOKA is one of the world‘s leading companies in the field of construction form-work. But the success factor in the building sector is extreme flexibility and always being able to deliver, and that means high costs due to the necessity to keep large inventories. Our solution: The optimum inventory thanks to an inno-vative S&OP forecasting and supply concept!

Barkawi Impact Story Special: Prinzhorn Group With an annual production of 1.9 million tons of packaging paper and around €1.2 billion in sales, Prinzhorn Group is the market leader in its field in Europe. But the competition is tough, and being cost leader is no longer enough on its own. Our solution: The optimum service level and perfect production planning with smart centralization!

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A software decision made easy: How companies gradually transform the challenges of modern supply chains into measurable results using a

software concept tailored to their individual needs

INDEX

Introduction 5

1. Typical challenges and problems of supply chains 8

2. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems 14

3. The alternative: The special software ClearOps 19

4. ClearOps impact story: AGCO 22

5. ClearOps: A combination of three key demands 27

About ClearOps 34

About Barkawi Management Consultants 36

The companies of Barkawi Group 37

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Globalization has had many benefits for the auto- motive industry, but after the catastrophe in

Japan, the disadvantages of globally networked supply chains also became tangible. It was only a little color pigment, but because the only plant that made it was damaged in the 2011 earthquake, many carmakers were suddenly missing a special ingredient for their paints: Xirallic – an aluminum- oxide refined with a special procedure that makes car lacquers shine.

Introduction

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The Darmstadt-based producer of chemicals and pharmaceuticals Merck achieves powerful glitter ef-fects and high color intensity with its paint products. In 2011, however, Xirallic (or the lack of it) created a very real problem for the auto industry. Of Merck‘s four color-pigment plants around the world, the only one that supplied the popular Xirallic was in Onahama – bang-smack in the middle of the earth-quake zone.

This had dire consequences for the automakers. Despite the fact that Xirallic only represented a small percentage of the group‘s sales at the time (€325 million of its total group sales of €9.3 billion), it rapidly proved to be a very decisive part of its business, because Xirallic is used in a large number of metallic paints, and without it, innumerable colors could no longer be mixed.

That was bad news all across the industry: Ford, Chrysler, Volkswagen, BMW, Toyota and General Motors all used lacquers containing Xirallic. And now they were all desperately in search of an alter-native. The car dealers were instructed to try and convince potential buyers to order other colors, but that couldn‘t alleviate the woes of the planners and supply chain specialists in the companies affected, because the replacement options were extremely limited.

Many production lines ground to a halt. The classic risk of single sourcing had reared its ugly head, and to make things worse, the support offered by supply

chain software at the time was meager to say the least. Control software calculated around for weeks on new scenarios and supply chains, without useful results. Today, special software would take care of the same processes in milliseconds.

Act, don‘t react – that is the motto of digital champions!

But even if an earth and seaquake followed by a tsunami is a ‘Black Swan Event‘ that will hopefully remain a unique and unre-peated cataclysm, the question remains: How can enterprises organize their supply chains, inventories, materials management, etc. so cleverly and flexibly that they can react quickly, effi-ciently and inexpensively to extra-ordinary events? And by that we mean not only natural disas-ters, but also bankrupt suppliers, delivery stops, materials bottlenecks and increasingly volatile customers with demands that are difficult or even impossible to estimate in advance.

The ability to do so is based on real-time calcula-tions, scenario techniques, mathematically founded evaluations, integrated and big data, collaboration and connectivity with partners and their data, and much, much more besides – all interconnected,

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A ‘Black Swan Event‘ is one that comes as a surprise and has a major impact.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a financial mathematician and specialist in deri-vatives and investment strategies, used the term in his book ‘The Black Swan‘ to describe the 2008 financial crisis, and it caught on from there. It is a term that originated in a time when it was considered that black swans could not exist.

But since the financial crisis, we now know better!

accessible and assessable at all times! Only then can a company be pro-active instead of merely trying to cope when events have already caused the prob-lem. Act, don‘t react – that is the motto of digital champions!

active instead of merely trying to cope when events have already caused the prob-

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1. Typical challenges and

problems of supply chains

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Companies with the most varied of products, en- tirely different clients and buyers and greatly diver-

ging challenges from their market and competitors

often nonetheless have quite similar issues to mas-ter. In addition to the well-known problems des- cribed below, there are innumerable other troubles

Everyday Excel chaos: In most enterprises, planning is still today Excel-based. The planning process suffocates under the weight of complicated Excel charts. Every department and even external partners and suppliers have their own. Intelligent integration into joint workflow software? Collaboration? Connectivity? Negative! The day-to-day struggle to consolidate data costs time, money and usually also competitive position.

The problem of areas of responsibility: The Sales team is generally close to the customer and where the money is made, but seldom does it feel responsible for sales forecasts. The excess stocks and loss of profit margins that can quickly result prove to be existential threats for the company. A central data platform into which the Sales team could enter daily sales figures and forecasts would be the up to date solution.

Poor coordination: Globally dispersed production sites often manufacture without being coordinated with one another, and nor are they included in a unified planning and forecasting process. But in order to remain competitive, companies need coordinated production activities, transparency on volumes, capacity utilization, run-times… the real-time recording of all numbers, data and facts.

Distance to the customer: For many manufacturers, dealers are the only direct point of interaction with the customer. That is why the company itself generally has little to no opportunity to have a direct influence on the service quality. Many companies lose money because the independent dealerships interpret ‘customer service‘ differently than OEMs or manufacturers ideally would.

Wrong addressee: Nearly all data evaluations done by large ERP systems primarily address finance and controlling, and less the operational logistics and the supply chain manager. This means that SAP and its peers often leave evaluation gaps that arise due to the large number of homemade solutions in Excel, Access, SQL, etc., which poorly bridge the data gaps.

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Time consuming: When changes arise or deliveries default, supply systems tend to be slow at calculating alternative delivery dates. Experience shows that the planner often spends the first hours of the working day checking what ERP planned during the night. The customer only hears, for instance, that the urgently required server won’t be deliverable

for another three weeks. A lack of scenario technology means that the system cannot plan an alternative!

Suboptimal inventory management:In many cases, the dealers’ inventories are far from perfectly structured ranges of fast-moving products that actually match customer requirements. On the contrary: 80-90 % of dealer inventories often don’t move at all, but tie-up capital and offer little assistance to the end customers, who simply don’t need those parts! At the

end of each year, enormous write-offs are required, which are a huge burden on profits.

Falling customer satisfaction: Customers are forced to wait weeks or even months for a new part, with an uncertain delivery date. And that although in the after sales and spare parts business, mere days of waiting for the right part or a repair hurt customer satisfaction. Many companies plan their spare parts poorly; always having the parts in stock that

no one needs and lacking the ones they do!

Poor partner integration: The suppliers deliver the wrong amounts to the wrong place on the wrong date. Inventories are constantly either too high or too low, a lack of materials leads to production standstills. Too many warehouses, uncoordinated stock levels, few synergies because partners are poorly integrated – these are also anything

but the exception in many companies.

Great need for coordination at logistics companies: The work required to coordinate the logistics between transport providers, CEP (courier, express and package services) forwarders and 3PL is enormous when amounts and deadlines fluctuate. Without a full data connection to and integration of the logistics partners, time, money and work are wasted here, with costs too

high while efficiency is too low.

that supply chain professionals are confronted with on an everyday basis. Modern supply chain software products can help, but there are so many of

them on the market, with different purposes, func-tions, applications, interfaces, etc., that it is not easy to choose the right program for one’s specific needs.

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IT Tools along the supply chain

ERP: Enterprise Resource Planning; BI: Business Intelligence

ERP

Supply ChainVisibility & Control

CRM

Planning & Inv. Management

Order Management

Procurement Supply & Collaboration

Warehousing

BI/ Analytics & Management

Knowledge/Content Management

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ERP

Supply ChainVisibility & Control

BI/ Analytics & Management

Knowledge/Content Management

Pricing

Manufacturing Transport Telematics

Transport / Distribution

Service Operations

Customer Interface

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2. Enterprise Resource Planning

(ERP) systems

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When trying to get a grip on the complexity of the supply chain

software universe, every potential buyer first ends up looking at the top level: the ERP systems. Charac-teristic of these systems like SAP is that they offer everything to cover all of the processes of the entire com-pany – from HR and procurement to materials management and finance.

These typical ERP software products cost several million euros p.a. to run, and anything from six months to several years are required for their implementation.

‘One fits all‘ is the concept. These systems unite everything in a single system – very practical, highly functional and definitely with a raison d‘etre on the market, but at the same time not very specialized.

They neither address nor do they cater for specific needs and issues of the supply chain and the people responsible for it. Special calculations, evaluations and data collections are not only severely restric-ted, they are generally not even possible. A typical example are the standard ERP forecasts, which in many cases are insufficient, offer too few options and are thus unsuitable for a demanding business that needs good forecasting.

So it is that many companies need additional, practical options for supplementing the standard

evaluations with state-of-the-art analyses and algorithms. Even modern systems designed for special needs often don‘t meet the demand that data be available in real time, because they often require much longer to calculate and provide up-dated data than highly specialized software.

But if the control software cannot plan using up-to- date data, for instance in materials planning, all the downstream processes, from procurement to production to sales, cannot be ideal either, and that causes fluctuations and major extra costs feared and known as the ‘bullwhip effect‘!

Conclusion: ERP systems offer a convenient ‘one fits all‘ solution for companies without special demands. But sometimes that is not enough ...

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Supply chain software universe

ERP (whole company)

Supply chain suites(end-to-end SCM)

Best of breed(focused

special tasks)Planning

Planning ...Sourcing/ Procurement

Finance HR SCM PLMCRM ...

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End-to-end supply chain: Integrated SCM suites

If a company with more complex logistics needs more special functions than an excellent, modern ERP software product can deliver, it enters the realm of the software suppliers that are specialized in the supply chain, that have solutions for all the proces-ses in the supply chain and support it end to end.

This kind of supply chain management software is known as an ‘integrated SCM suite‘. Some examples of SCM suites are Kinaxis, e2open and GT Nexus, and they do everything from demand planning to materials sourcing, procurement, transport and delivery!

There are many established integrated SCM suites on the market (selection):

One advantage of this supply chain software is that you can buy and install it as an overall solution if you want, but also as individual modules, so there is nothing to stop you implementing it step by step. The annual software costs quickly exceed €500,000, and the initial implementation costs a seven-digit figure.

Changing to SaaS (software as a service) also only shifts the payment flows, and experience shows that the implementation takes 6 to 18 months. But SaaS remains merely system support. It does have the whole system in view, but it is still usually not specialized enough for specific demands such as sophisticated forecasting.

One typical and successful supplier of supply chain suites is the company Kinaxis, which has been providing its high-performance control software for 20 years now. Its growth and positioning in the ‘Gartner Magic Quadrant‘ speak for themselves.

With Kinaxis, supply chain operatives not only get a hold on numerous problems in the madness that is their everyday planning, the program also offers numerous features that provide the foundation for perfect, modern and professional planning, such as real-time simulation and scenarios that can be simulated in minutes.

Kinaxis works in real time, so that planners can instantaneously see what will be lacking and when, if, for instance, a raw material runs out.

E2open GT Nexus Inform

LogilityJDA Kinaxis

PTC River LogicPSI

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The consequences of the various scenarios are immediately visible, calculable and displayable throughout the entire chain.

Kinaxis is a good product for companies with complex supply chains, but at around €30,000 to over €100,000 a month, it is more for larger enterprises with the corresponding financial strength.

Special software: Specialized vendors for selected issues

Many specialists today offer solutions to selected problems. Among them are for example planning specialists like Anaplan, OM Partners, o9 Solutions and Syncron. With perfect interfaces, a series of conjoined, highly specialized modules result in a solution that can do far more than normal supply chain software, to say nothing of ERP systems.

These specialized ‘best of breed‘ programs offer special functionalities for selected supply chain challenges such as forecasting, inventory, freight brokerage or procurement, but as a rule no overall solution that covers the entire company or supply chain. But bringing together the best of the best opens up entirely new opportunities to do so. Modular cherry-picking has become common nowadays, and it no longer has the technical draw-backs that were once a problem.

There was a time when there was good reason to shy away from modules and individual solutions,

because interface issues, different users and areas of responsibility, etc. simply put new clothes on the existing Excel sheet trauma. But that has no longer been the case for some years now. Highly functional special software is now highly sophisticated, and interfaces and varying modules – even from dif-ferent companies – can easily be joined together to a perfect whole. Specialized data flow just as smoothly as with a big ERP system, but with a whole new quality!

The innovative data landscape of the digital cham-pions that work with best-of-breed solutions com-prises individual modules adapted to their specific needs, and it is often better and cheaper than large end-to-end solutions, because the additional cost of selecting and implementing the different modules is quickly made up for with improved data quality and optimized processes.

New online interface technology based on web services makes integrating best-of-breed systems much easier, and that keeps implementation and operating costs down to a practicable level.

The fact of the matter is: Specialist individual solutions pay for themselves fast and offer a sig-nificant competitive advantage because the quality of the results they provide is so much better. And the leader among the inexpensive and easy-to- implement solutions is ClearOps.

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3. The alternative: The special software ClearOps

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Costs of €30,000 to upward of €100,000 a month are not a viable proposition for all companies,

especially not for SMEs. And six-month implemen-tation periods are also a deterrent for many enter-prises too.

ClearOps is a special software solution developed by Barkawi, the specialist in optimizing global supply chains, based on its practical experience in the industry. ClearOps is ideal for SMEs and clients for which Kinaxis is oversized and a dependency on SAP too risky, and that want the implementation completed in a few weeks.

ClearOps is a perfect low-cost, low-risk entry-level product for small and mid-sized companies that nonetheless require a specialized but affordable solution. Then, even if the company‘s system landscape changes over time, for instance due to rapid growth, it is less painful for it to replace an inexpensive special solution than it would be if it had invested large amounts of money and time in a large-scale program.

But ClearOps is not only affordable and faster to implement, it is also better and smarter than many other products. In particular when it comes to forecasting and planning, ClearOps is superior to all other providers and their solutions, with far more precise forecasts and data, where just a few percent already make a big difference, because forecasting stands at the start of the supply chain and thus affects all the downstream functions.

A 10 % improvement in forecast precision generally leads to a 30 % improvement in efficiency because less material and personnel are then required. So ClearOps pays for itself fast!

In addition to its ingenious mathematical models and algorithms, ClearOps is based on big data, demand sensing, machine learning and artificial intelligence, so it combines mathematics with leading-edge science and research.

It gets companies that need good planning and forecasts ready for the future! Once it is configu-red to the client‘s individual needs and implemen-ted, the user – generally the person responsible for supply chain operations – no longer has to waste a thought on numbers, data and facts, because all the truly relevant evaluations are available to him at the press of a button.

There are numerous software products on sale or in the cloud, but after purchasing one, customers often feel left alone and overtaxed by it, because not every- one is capable of dealing with complex data evalua-tions and analyses, or the changing demands that have to be entered into the system in real time, in addition to their everyday business.

That is why ClearOps offers not only software, but also takes care of the entire hosting and support. ClearOps makes evaluations and data available that are individually tailored to the customer and its needs: it is SaaS (software as a Service) at its best!

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But what is ClearOps actually capable of? How does it work in practice?

The following is a fascinating case study from the field of agricultural machines!

Steering Supply Chains

ClearOps

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4. ClearOps impact story:

AGCO

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With products like its Fendt tractors, AGCO is one of the top manufacturers in the agri-

cultural machinery segment. AGCO uses a clever ClearOps solution to offer its customers – the farmers – even better service.

Instead of supporting its dealers at all cor- ners of the globe in the old-fashioned way, with sales reps and the ty-pical sales-rep product ranges of oil filters and such like, and asking what spare parts they need in daily telephone calls, AGCO offers a mo-dern and customized global dealer platform.

700 dealers around the world are connected to the ClearOps platform, and as soon as they open their doors in the morning, they are offered a virtual shopping cart filled with the products they will need that day.

Yes, AGCO offers its dealerships an innovative ‘Vendor Managed Inventory‘. Thanks to ClearOps‘ perfect forecasting, outstanding planning and pre-dictive maintenance, the OEM knows which parts will be required that day, even before the dealership and its customers do. Even the weather conditions and the typical harvesting times go into the system, markedly improving its forecasting precision.

In AGCO‘s case, improved speed and forecasting leads to an 8 % increase in its sales and those of its dealers. How? Many customers buy a replace-ment part if it is immediately available, but don‘t do an inessential repair – for example to an exterior rear-view mirror – if they have to wait several days

and then drive back to the dealership again in order to get the part they need.

So, more readily available parts mean more sales, while at the same time reducing costs and inven-tories because only the parts that are really needed are kept in stock, and not the loathsome shelf- warmers! Precise mathematics and an innovative system make even the ‘long tail‘ of the ABC ana- lysis, the C parts, plannable!

In addition, the system brings the OEM closer to its customers. No longer are a close relationship with the customer and the customer data reserved for

Fig.: Reducing excess inventories

€80 m

Before

-75 %€20 m

After

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the dealers; the manufacturer itself can now have an active influence on customer satisfaction, costs, prices, etc. And the same system can also be used to measure things like customer loyalty, using the data that it collects anyway.

With no additional work you can answer a myriad of questions such as ‘does my customer buy 20 % or 80 % of its spare parts from the dealer?‘.

With the insights gained from this, you can design individually customized campaigns for heightening customer loyalty, develop discount concepts and regional programs. The list of possibilities for impro-ving turnover is long, but they all need good, hard facts that can be personalized.

Close relationships with the customers, recording and processing the acquired data and a high level of

forecasting precision can reduce or even entirely eli-minate the feared ‘bullwhip effect‘ that often cause manufacturer/OEM order volumes and inventories to skyrocket due to fluctuating customer needs. A specialized supply chain software product like ClearOps helps reduce costs and soon pays for itself!

The buyers of helicopters – the military or aircraft charterers, for example – are all confronted with the same problem: If the gearbox overhaul shows that it is beyond repair, the expensive aircraft is grounded – for 18 months! Because that is how long it takes to procure the replacement part ‘gearbox‘.

And keeping several gearboxes in the storeroom to cover that eventuality would be a costly fix, because they are worth around €60,000 each!

More sexy!

Fig.: Increasing part availability

78 % 98 %

Before After

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“The technology from ClearOps makes our highly complex supply chain transparent. With clear key figures, we can now manage and optimize in real time. It connects us with more than 700 repair shops and dealerships around the world at the press of a button, helping us guarantee the best service for our customers.“

Marco Piovano, AGCO International GmbH,

Supply Chain Manager

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The dimensions that are often involved can be seen in the Barkawi case example from the agricultural machinery industry cited earlier on: Tractors mustn‘t break down – least of all at harvest time! To make sure they don‘t, agricultural machine manufacturers keep several tens of thousands of spare parts worth millions of euros in stock.

The 700 dealers of a market leader in the agricultural machinery segment keep more than half a billion euros worth of replacement parts in their warehouses – millions of parts. And yet there are still machines out of commission because the part they need is

not in stock. What is more, at the end of the year, expensive unused parts have to be written off. The amount of capital tied up by this is enormous! So inventory optimizations have to be based on strong data, not on rough guesses.

Our solution: With the ingenious cloud platform ClearOps, the 700 dealerships have 20 % less capital tied up and the number of machines waiting for parts has halved. And not only that: In addition to the improved service at lower costs, the dealers are reporting an 8 % increase in their spare parts sales.

Clever supply chain software and its smart inven-tory management, modern Vendor Managed Inven-tory (VMI), collaboration and perfectly customized mathematical algorithms improve the ability to deliver the required parts, and that at lower costs and inventories.

Barkawi is the specia- list in this field! Our decades of practical ex- perience show that a more than 20 % reduc- tion of inventories across all warehousing stages is no problem at all.

In the case of extremely expensive parts and/or large replacement part inventories, having the

‘right‘ inventory secures competitiveness and puts a smile on the face of any young business owner. Because innovative supply chain software trans-forms dead, tied-up capital back into agile working capital.

Fig.: Reducing spare parts inventories

Before After

> -20 %

Optimum inventory based on excellent dataSmart inventory management

Improved ability to deliverAt falling costs

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5. ClearOps: A combination

of three key demands

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1. Collaboration partner networkDealers and OEMs often support and supply large networks comprising hundreds of inde-pendent service providers and points of sale. And yet, in many cases the end customer is literally left standing in front of empty shelves when his machine breaks down.

ClearOps is a collaboration solution that brings manufacturers closer to their customers and gives them the power to know and anticipate what they need. Data, replacement parts, forecasts, predictive maintenance – the list goes on – are all available at the press of a button with ClearOps.

• Instead of constantly and desperately trying to procure the required parts, you can at long last concentrate on your customers and their level of satisfaction again – because that is where you earn your money!

• ClearOps supports the entire collaboration process, end to end: planning and forecasting, optimization, replenishment, product launches, technician scheduling, guarantee handling and warranty management.

• It can easily be combined with more than 30 different systems (ERP, dealer management systems, etc.).

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2. Planning / S&OPCoordinating a company-wide planning process – if there is one – is a tough thing to accomplish in most companies. Planning often gets bogged down in a quagmire of complex Excel tables: the Sales team, the Finance department, Production, Logistics and the external partners and suppliers all have their own!

Smart integration into shared workflow software? Collaboration? Connectivity? None of the above! The daily struggle to consolidate data costs time and money.

• ClearOps puts an end to Excel chaos and unites all the involved parties on one intelligent collaboration platform.

• ClearOps perfects the planning process and creates opportunities that users of ERP systems can only dream of.

• ClearOps is flexible and can easily be integrated into any existing system.• ClearOps opens up whole new worlds of planning options, thanks to its smart

algorithms, ingenious mathematical models, big data, demand sensing, machine learning and artificial intelligence. ClearOps unites mathematics with leading edge science and research.

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3. Supply chain science & analyticsERP systems do what they are designed to do: support processes throughout the company. But when more demanding evaluations, data or issues in complex supply chains are at stake, SAP and its peers are out of their depth.

ClearOps creates new opportunities. For instance, it can enhance SAP with state-of-the-art data options, and it is easy to connect to existing ERP systems.

• ClearOps not only adds a new piece of software to technical solutions, it also offers a team of experts for individually customized special analytics and up-to-the-minute special assessments of things like customer segmentation. Big data enables data-based, customer-specific marketing, loyalty assessment and much, much more as well.

• ClearOps Analytics enables shopping baskets to be filled automatically in real time – an enormous saving of time and effort for planners and dealers!

• ClearOps improves forecast accuracy by up to 20 %.• ClearOps reduces inventories by up to 27 %.

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3. Supply chain science & analytics

1. Collaboration partner network

ClearOps: A combination of three central challenges

Hosting/SaaS

2. Planning /S&OP

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The top-10 benefits of the ClearOps solution:

ClearOps is a focused solution for special challenges.

ClearOps can be integrated into the existing IT infrastructure quickly and easily.

There is no comparable solution, least of all for cost-conscious SMEs.

ClearOps is highly customized but affordable. Its innovative basis makes customization easy.

Its data evaluation goes way beyond the analyses that have been possible to date, while offering more data and more analysis.

Make or buy? Our customers decide for themselves whether they want to operate the portal, analyses and evaluations themselves, or if they want to order the full-line service on top.

It is far cheaper to implement and operate than any other solution.

ClearOps is not just a software product, it can take over the entire hosting for you.

The rapid and simple implementation enables a fast go-live, with the system up and running within a few weeks!

ClearOps provides analyses and data that are individually tailored and updated as required, and it offers the highest quality of Software as a Service.

>

>>>>>>>>>

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ClearOps GmbH is a company founded by Barkawi that offers individually tailored special software. Its product of the same name is a proprietary platform with which all supply chain partners can jointly use and share data.

ClearOps offers a cloud-based IT solution for the management of supply chain processes, which connects, controls and optimizes entire supply and distribution chains across company boundaries.

Its core processes are the collection of data from customers and demand drivers, compiling and quali- fying demand forecasts, controlling production, procurement and materials stocks in a complex network, simulating and analyzing scenarios and what-if questions, and determining key figures and assessments.

The ClearOps solution combines state-of-the-art mathematical algorithms developed in close colla- boration with leading universities and research institutions. It also uses the latest big data and internet connectivity technology. It processes real- time information from a wide range of different systems connected up to it.

ClearOps consolidates, processes and evaluates big data, and users can access the results of the analyses (data analytics) across companies. In real terms, that means that ClearOps enables, for instance, the spare-parts-supply data from agricul-tural machinery manufacturers and 700 dealers to be brought together, so innumerable IT platforms are already linked through ClearOps.

It records requirements, consumption, inventories and deliveries throughout the entire distribution network, all the way to the end customer, and that enables optimization that transcends previous company borders. ClearOps calculates the optimal delivery amounts and inventory levels, and coordi-nates the adjusting of inventory reserves between dealers.

The increased availability of parts that results improves the quality of the supply, which also increases customer satisfaction and sales. It is a fantastic, individually customized tool for specific demands on supply chain software!

More information: www.clearops.com

Steering Supply Chains

ClearOps

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About ClearOps

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Examples of its use:

“The data come conveniently, on demand, so to speak – in real time and always exactly what you need! You take care of your every-day business, we take care of the rest!“

“ClearOps is based on big data, demand sensing, machine learning and artificial intelligence, so it combines mathematics with state-of-the-art science and research, getting companies that need excellent planning and forecasting ready for the future!“

Dr. Andreas Baader CEO and founder

Henry Greulich Co-founder

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Barkawi Management Consultants Munich is an international management consultancy that focuses on supply chain management and after sales services. Karim Barkawi founded the company in 1994, which today employs more than 200 people and has offices in Munich (HQ), Atlanta, Dubai, Riyadh, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Vienna. Among the clientele of Barkawi Consulting are globally active companies with logistically complex business models, like BSH Bosch and Siemens Household Devices, CocaCola, Daimler, Lufthansa, Nokia Net-works, Philips and many more besides.

Barkawi‘s hands-on implementation approach can be seen in its own entrepreneurial spirit. Its know-how and entrepreneurship have been the incubator for a number of new business ideas that Barkawi Management Consultants Munich has realized over the years, such as for B2X, an after-sales services outsourcing company.

Today, Barkawi Group encompasses seven compa-nies in various industries that employ almost 1,200 people in 30 countries.

Barkawi Management Consultants – The entrepreneur among consultants!

About Barkawi Management Consultants

“We combine consultancy with real operational responsibility.“Karim Barkawi Founder and CEO

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About companies of the Barkawi Group

Barkawi Management Consultants The entrepreneur among consultants!

Teqcycle Take-back und trade-in solutions for smart phones

ClearOps A software solution that optimizes global supply chains

star/trac Digital yard management for managing motor vehicle traffic

B2X Cloud-based customer- care concepts for smart phones and IoT

Fleetster Innovative software for vehicle fleets and mobility

Teqport A virtual marketplace for surplus industrial stock

servify A personal assistance app for users of consumer electronics devices

Find out more about Barkawi Group at: www.barkawi.com/en/about-us/barkawi-group

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DisclaimerData contained in this document is not binding and serves information purposes only.

Liability claims filed against Barkawi Management Consultants GmbH in relation to material or intangible damages resulting from the use of this publication shall be principally excluded.

© 2017 Barkawi Management Consultants GmbH. All rights reserved.

Image rights Shutterstock:

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Barkawi Management Consultants GmbH & Co. KG Baierbrunner Str. 3581379 Munich

Phone: +49 89 749826-0info@barkawi.comwww.barkawi.com

Excellence in supply chain managementBarkawi‘s strict focus on supply chain topics leads to outstanding and sustainable results in projects with specific challenges. We roll up our sleeves and muck-in together with our clients, and we make no decisions without well-founded numbers and ana-lysis. Because numbers, data and facts give us and our clients the confidence that we are making the right decision!

Based on strong data and a profound understan-ding of the operational conditions and business pro-cesses of our clients, we develop new concepts and strategies, optimize processes and organizational structures and then realize them. Because that is the only way solutions become true results. The fact that we do the actual implementation is another USP of Barkawi Management Consultants.

We combine consulting with real opera-tional responsibility! Barkawi has won many awards such as ‘Beste Berater‘ and ‘Hidden Champion‘, and it re-peatedly comes in ahead of the major strategy consultants in rankings in the fields of logistics and supply chain management.

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2006Hidden Champion Hidden Champion Hidden Champion

Best of ConsultingBest of Consulting Hidden Champion

Best of ConsultingBeste Berater

Digital Transformation Award

Beste Berater Beste Berater2012 20162009 20152014 2017

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Dr. Andreas BaaderManaging Partnerandreas.baader@barkawi.comPhone +49 89 749826-712

Henry GreulichPrincipalhenry.greulich@barkawi.comPhone +49 89 749826-803

Short communication paths for a successful technology transformation:

As a management consultant, we are specialists in the mathematical side of supply chain management. Because only figures, data and facts offer a solid basis for decisions on important matters such as ‘what is causing the performance problems?‘ Many different data sources have to be analyzed and integrated in order to gain transparency on ques-tions of this kind.

So enough of those rows of figures for IT experts or Excel evaluations done by the intern. Building intel-ligent big data and multidimensional evaluations for optimizing your supply chain are our daily bread as consultants. And that means your supply chain management and after sales service have a perfect basis in data!

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Amazon and co. show us how it is done: better, faster, more products and often cheaper thanks to a perfectly networked supply chain with fully integrated service providers. The basis for that is clever software that enables real-time calculations, scenario techniques, mathematically founded evaluations, integrated and big data, collaboration and much, much more besides. Specialized, interconnected, with the right KPIs and analyses, and all in real time. Digital pioneers are proactive, rather than struggling to keep up with events after they occur. Act, don‘t react – that is the motto of digital champions!

Barkawi Management Consultantswww.barkawi.com

Even today, chaos still prevails in many companies with their self-made Excel charts and endless fragmented solutions. The everyday struggle to pin the tail on the supply-chain-data donkey costs time, money, performance and customer satisfaction.

Many companies know how important it is to have an unbroken, integrated supply chain, and they consider digitalization, collaboration and connectivity to be essential, but the complexity of the decisions this requires are too much for them to handle: ERP system or special software? End-to-end solution for the entire enter-prise or modular, perfectly dovetailed individual solutions? Who are the providers? What does it cost? How long will it take to implement? Where and how do we begin?

‘Good-bye Excel chaos! Become a digital champion with the right supply chain software‘ by Barkawi Management Consultants is a concise aid to help you make the right decision, and it shows you how to gradually transform the challenges of modern supply chains into measurable results using a supply chain software concept that is tailored to your individual needs!

Good-bye Excel chaos! Become a digital champion

with the right supply chain software