Internal Issues in Merchandising

Department
1. Missing Tasks and Job Prioritization.
In the survey conducted, it was observed all the merchants have the practice of
maintaining a work dairy. Most of them mentioned the work dairy is used to mark
the important dates, to monitor order tracking, prioritize each day’s work and so on.

All the tasks or goals set for the day might not get completed on the same day and it
gets postponed to the forth coming days. Consequently, there’s a high chance of
piling up of several tasks and also missing of certain goals those tasks written in the
dairy is high compared maintaining a detailed Time and Action Plan
TNA charts – in detail.

Merchant getting involved in various activities, unable to prioritize jobs and complete
every task on time.

2. No proper data retrieval method

3. Overprocessing (Extra work, errors and rework)
Merchandising is considered as a tightly-packed, hectic job. It demands work to be
done right at the first time and reworks would take double the amount of time and
also takes time that needs to be spent for other equally important works. Therefore, it
is important for to make a merchants work less confusing and less complicated as
much and possible to avoid overprocessing.

Overprocessing Identified in areas such as:

1. Costing
2. New styles of adidas – patterns from buyer.
3. Sampling process – if no brand SOP on packing at least a GE SOP, these
4. For new styles we receive both global tech packs and garments from the buyer.
In such cases GE can also request for the patterns of those styles to reduce the
lead time for pattern making, buyer comments and corrections.

4. Dependency on superiors, unable to take decisions

This is an unavoidable internal delay as decisions taken by a merchant in garment
export business are very expensive decisions. Therefore, making expensive decision
errors is better than delaying certain processes. Thus, it is always better to make
important decisions with their direct superior’s approval. However, a merchant
should be experienced or trained well enough to take decisions therefore the
frequency of approaching their superiors can be reduced thus would not affect the
work flow to a great extent.
 5. Disorganized desk and shelves.
Disorganized desk does not prove the merchant is less organized. It is acceptable to
have a messy desk with things working on the current work. This mess becomes a
problem when the it piles up on previous works. A disorganized desk leads to
misplaced documents, lost information, and increased stress. Mostly the
desks end up looking messy due to the large dependency of merchants on
paper for filing various documents. A stressful work environment can affect
the productivity and decision making skill of a merchant. Delays retrieval of
data from files.

6. Shortage in stationary
Lack of stationary materials such as files, packing materials, envelops, etc., can delay
certain processes. A PO packet to factory can delay for a few days due to the
shortage of filing sticks, nonavailability of the right size of envelope or carton can
delay a strike offs/sample courier to the buyer. A merchant for each team can make
a note of each materials ordered every month and keep in mind the materials which
were in short, surplus and not in use and order accordingly for the next month.

7. Breakdown of printer, erp, etc., can delay the internal activities

8. Delay in release of PO packet.

Suggestions
1. Costing Process Re-engineering
EXISTING PROCESS
 GLOBAL TECH PACKS, LINE LIST AND
MUR CHARTS RECIEVED FROM BUYER

STYLES ARE DIVIDED AMONG THE ADIDAS TEAM BY

THE MANAGER TO EACH MERCHANT

TECH PACKS ARE DOWNLOADED, AND CONVERTED

INTO HARDCOPIES

COLOURWAYS AND COLOUR WISE ORDER QUANITY OF EACH

STYLE IS HAND WRITTEN IN T/Ps REFERRING LINE LIST.

LOCAL AND GLOBAL SUPPLIER NAME AND PLM NO. ARE

HAND WRITTEN ON THE DOCUMENT REFERING MUR
CHART

INDETAIL SUPPLIER DETAILS FOR EACH PRODUCT SUCH AS

GSM, CUTTABLE WIDTH, LEADTIME, MOQ, ETC., ARE WRITTEN
REFEERING LOCAL SUPPLIER DETAILS AND GOBAL SUPPLIER
DETAILS CHART

SUGGESTED PROCESS
 GLOBAL TECH PACKS, LINE LIST AND
MUR CHARTS RECIEVED FROM BUYER

STYLES ARE DIVIDED AMONG THE ADIDAS TEAM BY

THE MANAGER TO EACH MERCHANT

TECH PACKS ARE DOWNLOADED

STYLE COLOURWAYS AND ORDER QUANITY ARE

ENTERED IN EXCEL SHEET REFERRING LINE LIST.

A meeting wasLOCAL
held with
ANDthe team to
GLOBAL discuss the
SUPPLIER NAMEsuggested
AND PLMmethod. The team agreed to it.
NO. ARE
Initially they found it difficult
ENTERED to fully
IN EXCEL adapt
SHEET to the new
REFERING MURmethod
CHARTas they got used to enter
details in a physical tech pack.

The new method requires

INDETAIL manual
SUPPLIER entering
DETAILS FORofEACH
various data where
PRODUCT SUCHinASthe tech pack it was just
mere correction
GSM,of PLM no. And
CUTTABLE WIDTH,supplier names,MOQ,
LEADTIME, only ifETC.,
necessary and supplier details of
ARE ENTERED
IN EXCEL
each product. SHEET
Although, REFEERING
more LOCAL
details are SUPPLIER
entered in the DETAILS ANDit takes less time
excel sheet,
compared to GOBAL SUPPLIER
writing DETAILS
it directly on techCHART
packs. And the excel is created in such a format to
easily copy paste the data into the final cost sheet which the merchant previously used to
manually enter from the tech packs, where there is a high chance of making typing errors.