Distribution network assessment

We model the group's distribution network as it stands and as it can be: how many stock points, in which cities, held by whom and replenished how. Every option carries its cost to serve, delivery time, stock investment and the capital it needs.

• A demand map by city and market from twelve months of orders.
• A baseline network model showing present cost to serve, service and stock.
• Three to five network options with cost, service, stock and capital for each.
• A sensitivity analysis on volume growth and carrier rates.
• A board paper recommending a network and the sequence of moves to reach it.

• Cost to serve per order is stated by city and market, today's figure beside the modelled one.
• Your promise to customers is tested against the network, and the share of orders deliverable within the promised window is on the page.
• Stock investment is added up across every node, and stock cover is shown for each one.
• Each option states the capital it needs and its payback period, so the board funds one on its own numbers.
• The number of nodes sits beside the number your demand map supports.

Networks grow as a series of local decisions: a store storeroom, a second warehouse after a lease offer, a market entered through an agent. Nobody compares the whole against alternatives, so the group pays for stock in places where it does not sell and for long hauls where it could have stock nearby.

• Stock is held in several places and still runs out in the city where demand is highest.
• Delivery times to a major city have lengthened with no change in the carrier.
• A new market is served from a distant warehouse by default.
• Safety stock has been added at each site and no one has added it up.
• The board is asked to approve a new site and has seen only that site's rent.

Chairmen and chief executives of groups selling across more than one Gulf market or city, where stock is held in one place and delivered everywhere, or held everywhere and sold slowly.

Qasim Abbas set the capital logic behind a delivery fleet of about 1,000 vehicles at BaladiMart, and a network asks the same question of stock points. We test every location in your model on the capital the group puts there and what it returns.

We build the model from order, stock and cost data in the systems the group runs and its ledger, including Xero and NetSuite. See how fees work.

Do you recommend fewer or more sites?

We recommend the network with the strongest payback on the group's capital. The model compares every option on cost to serve and capital, and the board sees the answer for its own group.

Can the model include a partner-run site?

Yes. The model costs partner-run and group-run nodes side by side.

How does it treat a new market?

It tests serving the new market from existing stock first, then from a new node, and shows the volume at which a node pays.

If a new site, market or provider is on the board's agenda, name it. We show you at a private briefing with the Managing Partner whether the network assessment should come first.