Industries

Retail & Distribution

Retail and distribution businesses rarely fail on sales. They fail on the gap between what the system says is in stock and what is actually on the shelf — and on the discovery, months later, that a fast-moving line has been sold below cost the whole time.

The situation

What we usually find

For distributors, wholesalers and multi-branch retailers running several locations, several price lists and at least one system that does not talk to the others.

The operating problem is that stock exists in more places than the system does. Goods sit in a main store, in branch stock, on a van, in transit between branches and in a customer’s hands unpaid for. Where each of those is tracked differently, the total is a reconstruction rather than a figure, and everyone learns to add a margin of doubt to it.

Pricing carries the same weakness. Trade terms, volume breaks, branch-level discretion and promotional pricing accumulate until nobody can state the true realised margin on a line without going and working it out. That calculation is almost never done at the speed decisions get made at.

Compliance has narrowed the room to improvise. Every sale needs a valid electronic invoice, every purchase needs one to be deductible, and since January 2026 the Revenue Authority validates both against declared returns. A business running some of its trade outside the system is now doing so at a measurable cost.

How the work flows

Where the pressure points are

Every business in this sector runs a version of this cycle. These are the points where it strains when the systems behind it do not join up — and where the value of joining them up shows first.

The Buy to bank cycle, and where it strains without joined-up systems. Buy: Purchase decisions made on a stock figure the buyer already discounts in their head. Hold: Branch, van and transit stock counted on different rhythms and never quite agreeing. Price: Terms and discounts layered until realised margin per line is unknown. Sell: Route and counter sales landing in the ledger days after the customer walked out. Collect: Debtors chased from a statement the customer disputes on age alone.

Where we'd start

The first move

We would count one fast-moving line in one branch and compare it to what every system in the business believes is there. The size of that gap, and where in the flow it opens up, is a more useful basis for scoping than any requirements workshop.

Where we are not the answer

We do not sell a point-of-sale product. WIZAG withdrew its POS applications, so we have no till software to put in front of you and no reason to prefer one over another — we integrate with what you already run at the counter. If you are looking for a new POS, that is somebody else’s sale and we will say so early.

Is this how your operation runs?

Tell us where it strains, and we will tell you plainly which of this is relevant to you and which of it is not — before you commit to anything.

Book an Assessment
Back to top