UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business ------------------------------ PHAM THI PHUONG LINH FAILURE IN INVENTORY MANAGEMENT AT FASHION DEPARTMENT IN KHATOCO TRADING CO., LTD MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2019 UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business ------------------------------ PHAM THI PHUONG LINH FAILURE IN INVENTORY MANAGEMENT AT FASHION DEPARTMENT IN KHATOCO TRADING CO., LTD MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION SUPERVISOR: DR. NGUYEN PHONG NGUYEN Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2019 LIST OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .1 History of establishment and development .2 Mission of the company .7 Current development and market analysis .1 Complaints of clients about wrong shipping products .2 Differences between the stocks on count (floor) and stocks on system (sheet) .3 Differences between stocks quantity on accounting system and that on warehouse system.9 Initial cause-effect map .11 Updated cause-effect map .14 PART 2 – PROBLEM JUSTIFICATION .1 Definition of inventory management .2 Central problem: Failure in inventory management .24 Problem importance – consequences of the problems .24 PART 3 – CAUSE VALIDATION .1 Outdated and separated inventory control system .2 Insufficient inventory control procedures and regulations .3 Culture miss-match: No connection between relevance departments in inventory control .1 Insufficient inventory control procedures and regulations .2 Outdated and inconsistent inventory system .33 PART 4 – SOLUTION AND IMPLEMENTATION .1 Written working processes in inventory management .2 Setting up integrated system for inventory control .3 Project details and schedule .57 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Company structure .2 Figure 2: Sale and Profits of The Company and Fashion section from 2016 to 2018 .4 Figure 3: Number of agency's complaints from 2016 to 2018 .6 Figure 4: Portion of customer complaints in 2018 .6 Figure 5: Fashion Sale, Cost of goods sold and GPM in 2016, 2017 and 2018.11 Figure 6: Initial cause-effect map .12 Figure 7: Updated cause-effect map .17 Figure 8: Amount of client’s orders during 2016-2018 .26 Figure 9: Final cause-effect map .32 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Fashion sale and profit growth rate from 2016 to 2018 .5 Table 2: Transportation cost from 2016 to 2018 .7 Table 3: Stock reconciliation at 31st December 2018 .8 Table 4: Stock reconciliation between warehouse system and accounting system at 31st December 2018 .9 Table 5: Stock clearance and normal sale in 2017 and 2018 .10 Table 6: Participants of second in-depth interviews in March 2019 .18 Table 7: Inventory turnover days of fashion products .25 Table 8: Participants of third in-depth interviews in April 2019 .28 Table 9: ERP’s estimated costs .47 Table 10: ERP project schedule .51 LIST OF FLOWCHARTS Flowchart 1: Goods reception process .35 Flowchart 2: Goods delivery process .37 Flowchart 3: Inventory internal transfer .40 Flowchart 4: Goods return process .42 Flowchart 5: ERP implementation process .50 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Nowadays, cost management is more concentrated by many corporations over the world, especially in highly competitive market. Hence, to maintain the growth in long term and achieve sustainable competitive advantages over rivals, any business line or any company needs to be effective and efficient in managing its internal activities and Fashion business line of Khatoco Trading Co., Ltd is also not an exception. Although the financial results of fashion section in the company still show some positive signals with an increase in sales and profits, non-financial aspects indicate some problems include: increment in customer complaints, discrepancies in inventory information between accounting system and warehouse system as well as between stock counts and system records.
These are the significant symptoms which should be focused and analysed to find more inside problems. Based on the deep interview technique of qualitative research, secondary data analysis and literatures review, some potential problems and central problem of failure in inventory management are identified. This problem does exist because of some causes related to insufficient inventory management procedures and regulations as well as outdated and inconsistent inventory system. Therefore, to solve those causes effectively and efficiently, the recommendations of compiling written working processes for all inventory activities and building ERP system for Khatoco Trading are raised in details.