Tesco has launched a new online portal for suppliers, called Tesco Connect, which will help improve the shopping trip for customers through greater availability and service levels.

The tool will help ensure Tesco and its suppliers remain better aligned and therefore better able to deliver for customers in store.

Working better together

Listening to feedback from suppliers Tesco has created a new web portal to help share greater insight into the orders it expects to place. The new portal, Tesco Connect, will help the retailer and its suppliers work collaboratively to improve the shopping trip for customers and provide them with even better on-shelf availability.

The system collates information that was previously difficult to share with suppliers and presents it in an intuitive and easy to use format. This enables joint planning meetings to be more focused; Tesco and its suppliers can consult a single common information source that updates in real time and is supplement with additional information around current and future promotions.

Focussing on the customer

As well as providing supplier forecast orders, Tesco Connect uses data on every product in every store to prioritise the lines crucial to delivering strong availability in store in real time. This additional insight ensures the focus is consistently on improving the shopping trip for the customer.

Fewer lost sales

Following the launch of a pilot site at IGD's Supply Chain Summit last November, Tesco has been testing and refining the new portal with more than 20 suppliers, large and small, from across a range of categories to ensure it works for the people who will use it. The pilot has produced encouraging results; on average participants saw a reduction of more than a third in the number of short or late deliveries. This, coupled with the prioritisation described earlier, has delivered measurable improvements in in-store availability with fewer lost sales.

What this means for you

Following the pilot, the new tool has been rolled out to more than 200 suppliers across the grocery, household and health and beauty categories, with plans to bring fresh food suppliers onboard later in 2012.

Further information about Tesco Connect and how to maximise the opportunities it presents will be added to the Supply Chain Analysis soon.