Demand Chain Management

As reported in The Australian (31 May 2005), AP is trialling a demand chain management system called Teradata. Demand chain management (or DCM) was discussed at the recent National Retail Marketing Committee meeting, in which POAAL participated.The system being trialled collates historical retail sales data and uses that data for sales forecasting. DCM will determine purchase quantities and monitor ongoing sales performance. At present the system is being trialled in a number of corporate post offices.AP's use of DCM was the reason for the discounting of AP retail products in the lead-up to Christmas 2004, which caused much anger and disappointment among Licensees who stock AP retail products. POAAL has reminded AP that Licensees purchase stock from AP, and that when AP discounts retail stock those discounts have an impact on Licensees.AP has plans to further extend the use of DCM systems. An article will be published in the next edition of Postal News to give Licensees more information on how DCM will impact on Licensed Post Offices.Other companies that use Teradata products include National Australia Bank and Vodafone.