Kingfisher

Kingfisher’s purpose is to help make better homes accessible to everyone. This means offering the best choice of the latest, high-quality products and services at the best possible prices. Kingfisher wants to transform the way it tracks and responds to the effects of market volatility on its supplier costs and how they feed through to its products. It is no easy feat when you manage tens of thousands of stockkeeping units (SKUs) across world-class brands and best in class products across multiple international locations. “One of the key strengths of Kingfisher is its collective buying scales & successful own exclusive brands, currently representing 44% of total sales.”

The process required tracking and integrating prices for raw materials used in products as diverse as power tools to shower enclosures supplied by hundreds of different vendors globally

Kingfisher plc undertook a review of how it was impacted by cost price increases from its product suppliers based on cost increases for various materials, including metals, plastics, energy and many others. This review included the tools and data associated with these processes to determine how it could better identify, anticipate and respond to supplier price changes. Over six months working with Expana, Kingfisher dramatically improved how it identified and responded to CPI associated with changing raw material prices used in product manufacture.

It has helped it to:

• Improve clarity across the Group’s spend with current price information and clear visibility of current market prices and any associated Cost Price Increases
• Transform cost analysis and control processes to increase visibility over raw material price changes to ensure greater control over the cost of goods sold
• Increase efficiencies in data analysis to respond more quickly to price increases and benefit from falling raw material prices through timely, open discussions with product suppliers

Since implementing Expana, Kingfisher’s ability to track and react to the impact of market volatility on its suppliers’ raw material costs has strengthened. As a result, Kingfisher has managed its suppliers’ costs more effectively. The company also anticipates increased productivity in its buying process with less time spent sourcing and compiling market data and a greater emphasis on efficiencies across its supplier network.