Centric

The Business Need

Our client is the second largest US distributor of interactive video games and consoles. Like many distributors in the entertainment retail space transaction volume is cyclical in nature. They must be able to meet significant volume and complex product configuration demands over a 3 month period, during which they recognize approximately 80% of their annual revenue. The Client’s executive team recognized the need to establish strategic partnerships with professional services firms that could develop and deploy flexible, yet scalable, order fulfillment and distribution business solutions. 
 

The Centric Partnership

Centric assisted with the optimization of new assembly and packaging value-added services processes. This initial assistance has since evolved into a long-term advisory relationship where Centric has provided process re-engineering and packaged software application support across the enterprise. Centric Consulting continues to help this client with strategic planning and project oversight related to back-office and distribution operations management, quality and regulatory standards compliance, and IT services management.

Across the Board Improvement: The team from Centric worked with the client to address numerous needs, and positioned the business for future success. Specific examples of how the client and Centric worked together to drive business improvement includes:

• We have developed re-usable E-business solutions to accelerate new partnering opportunities between the client and their customers and suppliers.
• Centric consultants have assisted in numerous supply chain, warehouse management, and demand planning efforts, and have driven efforts to implement a performance management framework for distribution operations.
• Centric consultants are involved in process and technology efforts to significantly reduce customer charge backs, and improve customer scorecard performance ratings.
• We bring best practices and lean six-sigma experience to business process standardization, and we have instituted the use of document management technologies to formalize data collection and version control.
• Centric has managed numerous vendor and packaged software selection projects and has subsequently been engaged in managing the implementations.   
• Centric project managers helped coordinate Sarbanes-Oxley and quality assurance audits, and were well versed in how to temper best practices with ITIL, ISO and COBIT controls.
• Centric provides executive advisory services to define project business cases, manage risk and align organizational roles, and responsibilities with the client’s business and IT strategies.

Results

Centric has an outstanding project delivery track record, and continues to hit budgetary objectives. Our projects drive as much as 25%-35% cost savings in targeted areas by streamlining processes, and transitioning from labor-intensive manual controls to programmatic process controls.