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the UK. While the offer of employment is not your responsibility, if this option is taken up by some staff you may need to indemnify the warehouse for legal and HR costs. Finally, are your Service Level Agreements


(SLAs) enforced during the transition period? The SLAs may stipulate that 80 percent of inbound calls are answered in 20 seconds or that pick, pack and despatch is undertaken on a Monday and must be shipped on Tuesday. These are very important issues but might not be enforceable during the transition period as the incumbent may argue that the changeover has disrupted the working process and it can’t be held responsible for slippage in SLAs. This needs to be assessed as a matter of priority as it may well result in a backlog of despatches to customers and the problems that come with that in terms of customer dissatisfaction and anger.


Managing relationships You will have one very eager new provider


and one very disappointed one. Not a great situation to be in but both need to work together for your benefit. It is your responsibility to ensure that good channels of communication are set up so that everyone knows his roles and responsibilities. It is very important that senior members of


each supplier meet, ideally, at the premises of the outgoing provider, so your new partner gets a good feel for the scale of the transfer of stock and the current processes and systems that are in place. It is in the interest of your outgoing


supplier to act professionally during the transition, but he may not see it that way and so it is important to agree the process and to monitor progress. If the supplier takes his eye off the ball or become obstructive, this will have a definite impact on your new partner and it could take some weeks for your account to run efficiently. Furthermore, if this results in additional work being asked of the new supplier then he is fully within its rights to ask you for additional payment. So, to ensure the outgoing company is 100 percent committed to the change and to keep it motivated, it should be advised it faces being financially penalised if standards drop. This will probably be done by the negotiating of a reduced final invoice. You also need to be aware of any third-


party involvement and get them on board at the earliest opportunity. These would include specialist suppliers of services such as IT and web development, payment processing


and parcel carriers. These suppliers are all very important to the process and ignoring or underestimating their roles will almost certainly slow down the transition.


Planning Who is responsible for managing the plan


of action? Your new partner will be heavily involved in drawing up the implementation plan but you have a responsibility to be involved, as you need to know that everything is being managed smoothly. In which case, I would recommend you appoint one of your team to head up the implementation. Make sure you get the plan agreed as soon as possible, that all parties sign up to it, and that there is an understanding of what financial penalties will be imposed if deadlines are missed.


Preparing for all eventualities is essential


and I would recommend that a contingency plan is in place to ensure a solution should something go wrong or a deadline is missed.


The transfer While fulfilment is very much a mechanical


process, there will need to be a well-defined system of operation. Is the current system being transferred to the new warehouse or does your new provider have his own platform that he wishes to use? If a new system is to be deployed you need to understand how the previous one operated and what the implications of a change will be. There needs to be a period of time for


user testing. This is the opportunity to trial the new process and to ensure that timing and quality of service are at the highest level before going live. Consider what happens if you can’t go


live at the predicted date? How do you manage customer expectations and ensure reputational damage is limited? How do you transfer hundreds, sometimes


thousands of pallets from one warehouse to another without impacting on service? Even one oversight in the planning process can lead to serious disruption, put back the go-live date and result in loss of revenue. For example, one HGV truck is, on average, capable of storing 44 pallets. It is vital the pallets are transferred in a logical sequence and are packed carefully. If this is done correctly the unloading might take as little as 90 minutes. If done incorrectly it could


take a full day. A very costly mistake that is likely to be compounded by the fact that a whole fleet of lorries will have the same problem. The answer is to plan it, deliver it, and administer it. Make sure your new warehouse is ready to


accept stock—if you are having a dedicated area for bulk and pick make sure it’s set-up in good time. Is there any stock, such as excess stock, you can move without affecting service? Can new stock items be delivered to your new warehouse? Consider also: • Damaged stock—if your old supplier is holding damaged stock, is there any point moving it?


• Returned stock—wouldn’t it be easier for your old supplier to deal with returns and refunds?


• Old stock—you may have old lines that you aren’t planning to sell again; if you’re going to dispose of these items, do it now, don’t pay for them to be moved.


As you approach go-live with your new


partner you need to make a decision, do you stop despatches for a period of time to allow for the final transfer, or do you try and keep despatching? If you don’t want an interruption it would be wise to inform your customers what you’re doing—maybe you could stop accepting next-day orders? In the final few weeks before transfer you


need to start moving live stock, potentially keeping a supply of each item in the old warehouse. This adds to the expense of moving but it means you don’t stop despatching. After go-live there’s a mopping up


operation with the final stock transferred. Here it can get messy as you may be dealing with part-boxes and mixed pallets. Don’t let your incumbent get lazy, you’re still under contract and you should be on-site to check it is doing what it needs to do. In conclusion, I have never known a


transfer that has not gone live as planned, but each one does have its own set of issues that need to be overcome. All of these can be planned for and mitigated— and in this respect the help and support of the incumbent is important. If you have planned well then you should come through the transfer process unscathed and you will have retained the loyalty of your customers.


Stuart Gray is managing director of outsourcing and customer service specialist 2Touch.


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