How to create brilliant campaign fulfilment reports

Reporting is one of those activities we dread on our schedules, but which gives us a sense of satisfaction when they’re done.

Unless, of course, you’re struggling to put together campaign reports that tick all the boxes. Let’s unpack how to optimise your reporting and what best practice looks like.

Who wants what from a campaign report?

Your different teams have different priorities, all very valid – but it potentially makes reporting a logistical nightmare.

• Procurement wants to know why Sales ordered 10,000 components six months ago (and why 4,500 are still in the inventory).
• On the other hand, Marketing wants to know which items are more popular so it can adjust forecasting and resources.
• And the North West cost centre wants to know which components it needs to ask Procurement to reorder.
• Finally, the Board wants to know how its North West cost centre is making more profit than the others so all can learn from its success.

The challenges of good campaign reporting

• Giving Sales and Marketing the granular details they need
• Giving the Board the easily digestible overview they can query if necessary
• Satisfying Procurement with the right data
• Streamlining or delegating effective reporting so it doesn’t take hours
• Knowing which information is important
• Being able to supply additional info or answer queries at the click of a button

Example: how to optimise monthly reporting

Good reporting is all about good data: you can only get out what you put in. This means you need a powerful fulfilment system that allows tailoring, tracking and filtering of this information.

Your 3PL fulfilment partner should be able to set up your reporting requirements. For some clients, this means they can compile reports in a few clicks. For others, it’s part of the fulfilment services we offer that we prepare the reports for them.

Here’s how that works using a hypothetical example of a company we deliver membership packs for. They enjoy full service 3PL fulfilment from warehousing to reverse logistics (returns).

Inventory

Their inventory is managed through the OrderSure portal. At set-up, we agreed targets for warehousing that we will report back on.

Our targets include:

• Stockholding won’t exceed a set number of items – for example, 10,000 units
• Stockholding won’t exceed a set value of items – for example, £10,000
• Stockholding won’t exceed a set period of time – for example, six months

Reassurance factor

We hold inventory by brand for some clients ,but we can also hold it by cost centre in order to get visibility on who/ is generating sales and who is contributing to hoarding inventory.

This gives the client reassurance that:

• BBE components won’t go out of date or fashion
• Components bought and paid for will earn their keep
• They’ll know if components aren’t pulling their weight
• They’ll know if they need to order more to meet demand
• They track all stock, including returns and damaged
• They have all the information needed to manage budgets and maximise resources

Clarity of information

This client can log into their dashboard at any time from their desktop or mobile and get realtime performance data.

To facilitate the campaigns, we:

• Report back to the client daily via email with an overview
• Have a weekly call with the client reps to go over the week’s campaign and look forward
• Prepare monthly reports including insights and commentary, one of which is the Board’s executive summary

The downside of fulfilment system reporting

• You must be able to trust your fulfilment partner
• You must be able to trust the fulfilment system

Building trust

Our fulfilment system is called SCOPe. It’s our proprietary platform, developed in-house over the last decade.

We’ve got full control over it and it’s regularly updated with new features. In fact, if you want it to do something it doesn’t normally do, we’ll add it –  in.

SCOPe’s three modules – warehousing, OrderSure and 3PL process automation – hold a vast amount of data.

This is because we track everything, including:

• When it’s on its way to our warehouse
• While it’s in the warehouse
• On its way to its final destination

If it needs to be returned, we handle this too, including quality checks and return to despatch.

And we have ISO 27001, so you know the data we’re holding is secure.

Campaign data at your fingertips

The beauty of SCOPe is the wealth of data. But it’s amazingly user-friendly, so you can put your finger on the data you need very quickly. You see all the information we see.

So, while you’ll find it super convenient to check details on the go, it makes sense to let us do the reporting for you.

Fact: if stock is sitting on your shelf in a warehouse, it’s not earning its keep.

Better collaboration and understanding

Closer, better, more efficient working is what tech is all about, SCOPe included.

Let’s go back to those pain points we talked about earlier – what Procurement needs, what Sales and Marketing needs, and what the Board needs from reporting.

At the highest level – Board level – there’s a critical need to see the connection between inventory and profit. This is the driving force behind a retail campaign, but also a wide range of public sector activities too.

Supporting this, brilliant reporting brings all other teams together collaboratively. It also keeps teams competitive, innovative and making the best use of assets.

It’s a common frustration for Procurement teams that, when they do make orders, they only have a basic overview of what these products or components are, but not how they will be used by Sales and Marketing.

SCOPe is really good at connecting the information so, when the Procurement team calls off items requested by Sales and Marketing, they have visibility of how they are being used to make profit.

If they are not being utilised for profit, this can be red flagged and dealt with.

SCOPe’s framework and dashboard helps all teams analyse wasted budget (“Has the campaign failed? Where are we wasting money? Is our investment making a profit?”) or cashflow hiccups (“Why did we buy it so early?”).

Ask for a demo

If you’d like to talk to us about bringing clarity and simplicity to your data reporting, get in touch. Ask for a SCOPe demo or talk to us about any other aspect of 3PL fulfilment.

Photo by Campaign Creators on Unsplash. Images from SCOPe by Granby