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Recurrency: The Manifest

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<h2>Tracking Down the Minutes</h2>
<p>&#8220;If only there were more hours in the day;&#8221; chances are, you&#8217;ve heard this phrase before. We all know how valuable time is, but do you ever wonder how it seems to disappear? A minute here or there shouldn&#8217;t matter much, but they do. Where do those minutes go and why do they matter so much?</p>
<p>When I was in high school, I had a math teacher who never let us out early. Upon hearing this news, she was met with a chorus of groans but once she explained her reasoning, it made sense. If she let us out three minutes early, every day, for a month, then she would have lost an hour of class time in total. That’s a whole class period down the drain for the month of September. What if she did that every day for an entire school year? Now, we’re losing several days of school. Those lost minutes, while seemingly insignificant, play a vital role over the course of a year.</p>
<p>This same mindset can be applied to your business. Time adds up and you need to be careful about what you’re spending it on. Now that we&#8217;ve tracked down the minutes, we understand that even a minute is precious. Lost time converts to lost revenue. That’s why Recurrency was designed to optimize tasks and cut software loading times. Let’s crunch the numbers and see just how much time Recurrency can save your business in a day.</p>
<h2>One-Minute Quote</h2>
<p>Depending on the person and the day, a salesperson might send out 10-15 quotes every day. Jumping from customer calls to inventory sheets to company price rules, there are a lot of tasks that go into producing a quote. Let’s say it takes around 15 minutes to make a quote and they are sending out 12 a day. If my math teacher taught me correctly, that means they are spending more than three hours a day making quotes. That’s a long time when there are customer emails awaiting responses answered and team meetings waiting to start.</p>
<p>What needs to happen is as plain as day. The salesperson’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system needs to pick up some of the slack and help speed the quote process along. There’s no reason why this task cannot be automated. But why hasn’t it?</p>
<h2>Automation Saves Time</h2>
<p>Legacy ERPs house data but don’t use it. The lack of innovation within ERPs is the root cause of the three lost hours (in many cases, even more). Recurrency’s quote flow was designed to be done in about one minute. Yes, one minute. Recurrency recognizes what data you need for a quote and pulls it up so you don’t have to. No math is needed here; if you’re sending 12 quotes a day, you’re only going to spend twelve minutes on making those quotes. That’s a difference of two hours and 48 minutes. What will you do with this newfound time? I bet there’s more on that to-do list of yours&#8230;</p>
<p>Even better than fast, Recurrency works well. Within that one-minute quote flow, you’ll get complex features like &#8220;Dynamic Pricing&#8221; and &#8220;Upsells&#8221;. These tools make sure that you are both increasing your profitability and protecting customer loyalty. Dynamic Pricing ensures that your prices stay relevant up against industry trends, shipping costs, margin targets, and a score of other factors you can read about here. Our &#8220;Upsells&#8221; feature steps in at the end to remind your customer what they are forgetting to buy. Based on your company’s own historical product knowledge, Recurrency gives you smart upsell recommendations that benefit both you and your customer.</p>
<h2>Stress-Free Search</h2>
<p>Any guesses on how many searches your sales team makes in a day? Spoiler alert: it&#8217;s a lot. There’s always something to check or a question to answer. The problem is that ERPs and clunky Excel sheets make searching for a piece of data an ordeal. Recurrency’s search feature saves more time in the day than is quantifiable (although we know it’s a lot!). With typo-tolerant, instant searching, and lightning-fast loading times, you’ll spend less time doing breathing exercises. See our typo-tolerant search function in action:</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-404 size-full" src="https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/TypoTolerantSearch-1.gif" alt="" width="530" height="330" /></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>This was our first feature and you may find it’s your favorite. Our search feature radically improves the flow of your workday. Within a few days, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it. Yeah, we’re proud of this one.</p>
<h2>Give Us a Call</h2>
<p>If there’s a shortcut or workaround you need, let us know. We once helped a customer save hours in their day just by <a href="https://www.recurrency.com/post/how-erp-features-are-made-at-recurrency">creating geographic filters</a> for his inventory pages. What can we do for you? Integrating Recurrency takes less than forty-eight hours and we won&#8217;t disappear after that. Unusually good customer service is our standard here, and doing the right thing is our ethic. You know better than anyone where you’re losing time, and we know that we can help.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s not a question of IF Recurrency can save you time, but HOW MUCH. Truthfully, I stopped counting somewhere between one-minute quotes, intuitive searches, and unique customizations. Whatever the number, I think it’s safe to say that it&#8217;s big enough to impress even the toughest of critics &#8212; my math teacher. Book a <a href="https://www.recurrency.com/demo">demo</a> today. There&#8217;s no time like the present.</p>


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Time adds up and you want to be careful about what you’re spending it on. Let’s crunch the numbers and see just how much time Recurrency can save your business in a day.

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Time adds up and you want to be careful about what you’re spending it on.

Selling

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">If there’s one thing that startups are famous for (other than scrappy young founders and mild California weather), it’s selling their product after they’ve only built out 80% of its functionality.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Should you care about the remaining 20%? Here are a couple of scenarios to help you decide. Imagine an airline delivering you 80% of the way to the landing strip (or even worse, imagine flying on a plane that’s 80% complete). Next, imagine your favorite team announcing their commitment to play at 80% effort in the upcoming game (FYI, it’s game seven in the World Series). One of these scenarios is extraordinarily dangerous and the other… frustratingly illogical. So, do you care about the remaining 20%? Recurrency does.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When our team set out to build an automated platform for enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems that use artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, we made a promise: Until our product is 100% ready for market, we won’t sell. No cutting corners or half-written code. We took the time needed to build to completion because a good company’s product doesn’t force its customers to shut down. </span></p>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400;">80% Is Bad for Both of Us</span></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">While the two scenarios we introduced are hopefully unlikely to come to fruition, they help illustrate the consequences of a premature product launch. The problem with building a product only to 80% before declaring it ready for rollout is that practice becomes a mindset. An infectious “it’s good enough” philosophy becomes the adopted business-standard. If less than 100% is acceptable, employees set their maximum productivity to 80%. Company reports, internal meetings, and all daily tasks result in B-level work (and not even a solid B). </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In turn, Recurrency is run by smart, intellectually curious, and driven individuals. We don’t accept Bs. We just happen to be the students who annoyed the rest of the class by setting the curve high (we’re sorry about that).</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Here’s the other part of selling mediocrity: your business most likely won’t last and a startup definitely won’t last. How would it be possible to finish the lingering 20% once the product is in use? Instead, time is spent chaotically seeking additional resources to help fix sub-par code and figuring out why the product doesn’t function as promised. And the customer? Their time is spent questioning the startup and explaining to their boss that “these things happen” and “80% is the norm.” From the beginning, we knew we weren’t going to run Recurrency like this. And that was not a hard decision for us. </span></p>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Recurrency Way</span></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Instead of calls from users detailing disasters and countless product issues, we receive customer success stories. They share that they wished they could tell their “past selves” to call us sooner. They say they’re 100% &#8212; not 80% &#8212; pleased. We don’t take these stories for granted, and we don’t pretend the startup world is as easy as selling lemonade (which we also did as kids). Even then we didn’t sell anyone just a lemon (we know business).</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">With Recurrency, you’ll never have to wonder what you’ll get. Our ERP integration is 100% ready when you are. Here are just a few features you can expect: lightning-fast user experience fueled by an artificial intelligence layer that provides automated workflows and smart business recommendations. Not enough? You also get improved profitability. By using </span><a href="https://www.recurrency.com/post/price-optimization-finding-the-perfect-price"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dynamic Pricing</span></a> <span style="font-weight: 400;">and</span> <a href="https://www.recurrency.com/solutions/recommendations"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Recommended Upsells</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, Recurrency produces accurate quotes and generates customer loyalty. Our </span><a href="https://www.recurrency.com/solutions/reorders"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Customer Reorder Prediction</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> feature goes even further by ensuring that your sales team never misses out on a potential sale. On the purchasing side, Recurrency’s </span><a href="https://www.recurrency.com/post/purchasing-at-a-wholesale-distributor-1984-or-2024"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Demand Forecasting</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> fights stockouts and reduces overstock by keeping its eye on the future while you focus on the day at hand. Most importantly, all these features are fully built. A-level work, naturally. We don’t settle for anything less, and neither should you.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Let Recurrency boost your ERP and show you that you’re better than 80%. When it comes to ERPs, we’re all in.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Book a </span><a href="https://www.recurrency.com/demo"><span style="font-weight: 400;">demo</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> today.</span></p>


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Imagine an airline delivering you 80% of the way to the landing strip (or even worse, imagine flying on a plane that’s 80% complete). Next, imagine your favorite team announcing their commitment to play at 80% effort in the upcoming game.

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Most startups stop building their product at 80% functionality. The Recurrency team builds to 100%.  

Startup

Imagine an airline delivering you 80% of the way to the landing strip (or even worse, imagine flying on a plane that’s 80% complete).

A Startup With Old-School Values - Recurrency

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Over the past year and a half, it’s a safe bet that you’ve found yourself hurriedly headed to the store to stock up on essential items only to be confronted with empty shelves. While the panic buying of others (throwback to toilet paper shortages) may have contributed to your unsuccessful shop, the real issue is rooted much deeper. An ongoing pandemic has rendered our supply chain unreliable at best. While online orders have skyrocketed, </span><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/delta-variant-outbreaks-in-sparsely-vaccinated-asian-countries-disrupt-production-11629807725?mod=hp_lead_pos5"><span style="font-weight: 400;">many factories have been forced to temporarily or permanently close their doors</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. These disruptions in supply lead to outages, increasingly long delays, or climbing prices. The frustration, however, is free. </span></p>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400;">How Consumers Can Prepare</span></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Unfortunately, even if it’s your holiday wish, supply chain issues are not expected to go away before peak shopping season begins. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are just around the corner. Here’s what to expect (and how to stay sane(r) while shopping).</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">What to Expect </span></h3>
<ol>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><b>Merchandise Shortages</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: While retailers (</span><a href="https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/2021/10/08/how-walmart-is-navigating-the-supply-chain-to-deliver-this-holiday-season"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Walmart</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, </span><a href="https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/operations/amazons-plan-to-serve-customers-this-holiday-season"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Amazon</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, </span><a href="https://corporate.target.com/article/2021/10/supply-chain-update"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Target</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">) are doing their best to prepare, labor shortages and supply chain disruptions are still likely to impact the availability of high-demand items.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><b>Price Fluctuations:</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Black Friday through Cyber Monday are known for the incredible savings offered. There’s nothing quite more satisfying than relaying an unbelievable discount you scored for something that your friend paid twice as much for. Don’t worry, you’ll still be able to secure some gloat-worthy offers, but expect retail prices to change, based on supply and demand.</span></li>
</ol>
<h3><b><span style="font-weight: 400;">What to Do </span></b></h3>
<ul>
<li aria-level="1"><b>Start Online: </b><span style="font-weight: 400;">2020 sparked record online sales as more and more consumers opted to make online purchases rather than in-store purchases. This trend is anticipated to continue and many retailers offer Black Friday deals online. You’ll have more options and a better chance of finding your items in stock.</span></li>
<li aria-level="1"><b>Shop Scarce Items Early</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: It’s time to prioritize your shopping lists. Begin knocking out highly sought-after items first (think popular tech, gaming systems, and hyped-up toys). The longer you wait to make these purchases, the higher the risk you run of facing outages or delays. </span></li>
</ul>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400;">How Distributors Can Prepare</span></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Supply chain disruptions are sadly not a new problem we’re contending with. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the holiday season, in general, will strain distribution. Consumers are eager to purchase but are hyper-aware of potential product shortages. This awareness, in most cases, does not translate into patience or understanding. Should you face stockouts or long delays, </span><a href="https://www.recurrency.com/post/supply-chain-disruption-made-me-buy-an-old-prius-update"><span style="font-weight: 400;">you will likely lose customers to your competitors</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. This may seem alarmist, but there are simple ways to ensure that you’re not affected by supply chain issues. Here’s what to expect this holiday season and how to fix it.</span></p>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400;">What to Expect</span></h2>
<ol>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><b>Omnichannel Madness: </b><span style="font-weight: 400;">Consumers are ready and waiting. Be prepared to fulfill orders on multiple platforms and ship products to different locations. Is your Enterprise Resource Planning system fast enough to manage everything you need? If you’re not sure, then the answer is likely ‘no.’ </span><a href="https://www.recurrency.com/integrations"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Here’s how to speed it up</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><b>The Unexpected</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Anything is possible, so be prepared. Do your best to plan, stock, price, and ship products without interruption, but be ready for when things go awry. Document </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">everything</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (and not on spreadsheets; try </span><a href="https://www.recurrency.com/products/purchasing"><span style="font-weight: 400;">this</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> instead).</span></li>
</ol>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400;">What to Do</span></h2>
<ol>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><b>Invest in Demand Forecasting</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Spending smarter doesn’t mean spending </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">more</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">. While it’s necessary to increase expenditure to fulfill orders on time, you can avoid paying last-minute surge prices to receive inventory by accurately predicting what you’ll need well ahead of time. Recurrency’s </span><a href="https://www.recurrency.com/solutions/forecasting"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Demand Forecasting</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> feature helps reduce retail stockout rates by up to 30%. </span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><b>Optimize Your Data</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">: The key to making this year successful is to review your data from the previous year. Data is invaluable, but only if it’s usable. Recurrency uses artificial intelligence to </span><a href="https://www.recurrency.com/solutions/pricing"><span style="font-weight: 400;">collect, clean, and analyze your existing data</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> to automatically suggest the best pricing decisions.</span></li>
</ol>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When you’re ready to reduce stockouts, prevent overstocking and optimize your distribution, we can help. Partner with Recurrency as you prepare to take on this holiday season. Get started today by </span><a href="https://www.recurrency.com/demo"><span style="font-weight: 400;">booking a demo</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. </span></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>


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Unfortunately, even if it’s your holiday wish, supply chain issues are not expected to go away before peak shopping season begins. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are just around the corner. Here’s what to expect.

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How Black Friday Affects the Supply Chain (and What to Do) | Recurrency

Distribution

Forecasting

Supply Chain

Learn how Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the holidays will impact the supply chain. Read about what to expect and how Recurrency can help.

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<p>I bought my 2016 Chevy Volt in May 2019 for $14,900. I thought it was a pretty good deal. The car was in good shape and only had 44,000 miles on it.</p>
<p>Two years and 10K miles later, I sold my Volt for $17,328 to Carvana &#8212; a reseller. Carvana will turn around and flip my Volt for $20K online. Something is very wrong with the used car market.</p>
<h5><em>[This is an update to <a href="https://www.recurrency.com/post/we-need-better-demand-forecasting-to-solve-the-supply-chain-crisis">Oct 25th, “We need better forecasting to fix the supply chain crisis</a>.”]</em></h5>
<h2>Why Am I Selling?</h2>
<p>I enjoyed my Chevy Volt for most of the time I owned it. The Volt got 55 miles of pure electric on each charge. I only bought a couple of tanks of gas each year. However, my opinion quickly soured this August when a <a href="https://www.recurrency.com/post/we-need-better-demand-forecasting-to-solve-the-supply-chain-crisis">part disruption put my Volt in hibernation at the local Dealer’s garage</a> for 3 months.</p>
<p>I lost faith that GM/Chevrolet could maintain their vehicles. A 3-month wait for a common part means someone in GM distribution did not accurately predict demand. With good logistics, it doesn’t matter how long it takes to build or ship a part. The part is available when you need it. Chevrolet did not have good logistics. I don’t know which Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software Chevrolet uses, but I know it didn’t prepare them for this situation.</p>
<p>I couldn’t risk being car-less in Nashville for another 3 months the next time my check engine light blinks on. It’s not exactly a walkable city. So I downgraded my ride. I bought a 2010 Prius.</p>
<p>If there is any car with an abundance of spare parts, it has to be a Prius. Those annoying gas-sippers are everywhere &#8212; struggling to get up hills, or hiding in what you thought was an open parking spot.</p>
<p>But that’s me. I guess I’m a Prius guy now.</p>
<h2>Empty Shelves Lose Customers</h2>
<p>My tragic story highlights what happens to your customers when they can’t purchase from you. Poor demand forecasting delivers empty shelves. They go to competitors, often begrudgingly.</p>
<p>Recent supply chain disruptions make demand forecasting more challenging. Methods of managing orders in spreadsheets can’t keep up with the changing marketplace or dynamic prices.</p>
<p>I joined Recurrency because I saw how badly distribution needed its AI evolution. Online retailers like Amazon show powerful prediction tools can satisfy customers and increase revenue. Recurrency brings those same tools to existing ERPs, often reducing stockouts by 61%.</p>
<p>We realize nobody wants to spend 12 months to rip and replace their existing ERP. So we built an integration, or plug-in, that works with your existing system, and brings you the features and speed you’ve been missing.</p>
<p>It may be too late for GM to save me as a customer, but they can stop the bleeding with better demand forecasting. So if anyone from GM Sales Operations is reading this… <a href="tel:1 (866) 703-0377">give me a call</a>. <span class="emoji">😃</span></p>


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I lost faith that GM/Chevrolet could maintain their vehicles. A 3-month wait for a common part means someone in GM distribution did not accurately predict demand.

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Why I sold my Chevy Volt for an older Prius

Supply Chain Disruption Made Me Buy an Old Prius [Update] - Recurrency

Time adds up; be careful what you’re spending it on. Let's crunch the numbers and see how much time Recurrency can save your business.

How Much Time Does Recurrency Save You?

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How Much Time Will Recurrency Save You? - Recurrency

News

How Much Time Will Recurrency Save You?

Rob Owen

<p>It’s hard to stay relevant. It was easy in the ’80s because trends lasted longer. Leg warmers, anyone? Heck, some toys from the holidays in the 1980s were still in demand in the ’90s. Now, with social media and the internet’s dominance, it’s impossible to stay up to date on every trend. Setting price often has the same short-expiration feeling, and let’s face it: <i>no sales team can do it without the help of the right AI </i>acting as its wingman with eyes in all directions, especially on what’s coming up fast from behind. Given the current state of everyone’s supply chain, it’s time to ask: When it comes to setting price, who’s watching your six?</p>
<h2>A New Solution</h2>
<p>Recurrency is an automated platform for your ERP with eyes on everything that matters to price. While this may seem an impossible task, Recurrency takes it on with ease. In fact, our Dynamic Pricing feature is the tool every business needs to turn a pricing nightmare into a good night’s sleep.</p>
<p>By ingesting billions of public and private data points like it’s enjoying a small snack, Recurrency spots price patterns and trends. It combines this information with other product knowledge to calculate the right price that works for both your customer and your company. I know what you’re thinking: How long does all of this consumption take? One minute. <i>Your entire quote flow, from start to finish, takes one minute</i>. This includes inputting customer order data and calculating perfect prices. What’s more, these perfect prices are relevant prices.</p>
<h2>What Is a Relevant Price?</h2>
<p>A relevant price takes into account a score of factors from shipping costs to margin targets. All pertinent components are used by Recurrency to calculate the price that will help close your sale. It will increase your profitability by making sure you’re not pricing too low, but also protect customer loyalty by making sure you’re not pricing too high.</p>
<p>Let’s look at some of the pricing criteria Recurrency takes into account:</p>
<h2>Shipping Costs</h2>
<p>Everyone is talking about this one (<a href="https://time.com/6088033/why-inflation-is-rising/">here</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2021/supply-chain-issues/">here</a>, and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/22/cargo-ships-traffic-jam-los-angeles-california">here</a>), just to name a few. Our Growth Lead even talks about <a href="https://www.recurrency.com/post/we-need-better-demand-forecasting-to-solve-the-supply-chain-crisis">his recent experience</a> with his doomed Chevy Volt&#8230;). Shipping costs seem to be changing daily due to supply chain issues. As they spike, you need to update your pricing promptly to protect your margins, without driving away your customers with a sudden increase. Don’t stress, though. Recurrency has your six and will do this for you.</p>
<h2>Industry Trends</h2>
<p>Just as Recurrency watches shipping costs, it also monitors rapidly changing industry pricing trends. If the costs begin to increase (or decrease!) for an item, Recurrency will adjust its target price so you stay competitive with other distributors. It’s hard to watch an entire industry, especially a multi-trillion dollar one, so leave it to Recurrency.</p>
<h2>Customer Data</h2>
<p>Every customer is different and so prices need to stay up-to-date as you move from customer to customer. This will ensure that you can close each sale while also protecting customer loyalty. Recurrency looks at your customer’s purchasing history as it calculates its recommended price. Returning customers is the goal here, and we want to help you maintain that relationship.</p>
<h2>Company Pricing Rules</h2>
<p>Pricing is also personal and it needs to fit your business. There is no one-size-fits-all here (unless there’s a contract in place!). That’s why when Recurrency populates a price, it pulls your company’s pricing rules. This way you likely won’t need to adjust the price given (unless you want to).</p>
<h2>Supplier Pricing</h2>
<p>Remember, our goal is to protect and increase your profits. Recurrency remembers how much you paid for the items you sell so that your margins are never in question. Recurrency notices when your suppliers raise their prices and adjusts accordingly. No lost sales but no lost profits, either, is the key.</p>
<h2>Margin Targets</h2>
<p>Goals in business are important and necessary, and Recurrency knows that, too. Your company’s margin targets are accounted for when Recurrency calculates your price. We want to make sure that if you call us at the end of the quarter, it’s with good news. These are some of our favorite calls and they’re always on time.</p>
<h2>Regain Balance</h2>
<p>Your sales team is either having nightmares or losing sleep over pricing. Recurrency fixes this. It&#8217;s time to wake them up, give them the good news, and then send them home early after some one-minute quotes. You’ve got your team’s back, and if you check your six, we’ve got yours.</p>
<p>Book a <a href="https://www.recurrency.com/demo">demo</a> today to learn more about what Recurrency can do for you.</p>


blog-cover-stayrelevant

Blog-Cover-StayRelevant

Given the current state of everyone’s supply chain, it’s time to ask: When it comes to setting price, who’s watching your six?

Recurrency takes in a score of factors to keep your prices relevant. Let's zero in on some of them. 

Wholesale

Stay Relevant on Pricing with Recurrency - Recurrency

A Startup With Old-School Values

Shelby Baker

<p>A lot can happen in just a day, week, month, and year. What about a hundred years? Within that time frame, the world can completely change multiple times. And it has, thanks largely to technology. Technology has transformed every industry, family, and organization. The supply chain industry has experienced these changes more than others. Once we moved from buying bread at the local baker to importing goods from across the ocean, the supply chain needed innovation. Although this trillion-dollar industry seemingly has a flat tire these days, supply chains used to move (relatively) fast. Let’s take a look at some of its past models.</p>
<p><a href="https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/TimelineBlog.png"><img loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-355 size-full" src="https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/TimelineBlog.png" alt="How the Supply Chain Evolved" width="5200" height="2283" srcset="https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/TimelineBlog.png 5200w, https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/TimelineBlog-300x132.png 300w, https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/TimelineBlog-1024x450.png 1024w, https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/TimelineBlog-768x337.png 768w, https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/TimelineBlog-1536x674.png 1536w, https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/TimelineBlog-2048x899.png 2048w, https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/TimelineBlog-1400x615.png 1400w, https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/TimelineBlog-1920x843.png 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 5200px) 100vw, 5200px" /></a></p>
<h2>The Beginning of Optimization</h2>
<p>The supply chain saw its first real innovation in 1911 when Frederick Taylor published <i>The Principles of Scientific Management</i>. Here, Taylor laid out his views on industrial engineering. His emphasis on economic efficiency and labor optimization modernized manual loading processes. Taylor’s way of thinking expanded during World War II in the 1940’s. Manufacturing military supplies transporting them to troops at speed was critical. War time operations research and industrial engineering led to supply chain engineering. There are still improvements to be made, but this is where the modern production chain got its start.</p>
<h2>Mechanization Over ManPower</h2>
<p>In the 1940’s and ‘50s, the name of the game was mechanization. Pallets and pallet lifts took away issues of labor intensity when it came to handling materials. Next was organization. Distributors learned how to optimize every inch of space in warehouses while also decluttering. The “unit load” came with pallets. This uniform unit of measurement helped tremendously as the supply chain started to use multiple modes of transportation (trucks, trains, and ships) for one shipment.</p>
<h2>Speedy Deliveries</h2>
<p>Out with the old and in with the new. Or, out with the rails and in with the trucks. The ‘60s prioritized time-sensitive deliveries so trucks took center stage. The National Council of Physical Distribution Management, established in the ‘60s, worked to streamline warehousing, material handling, and freight transportation. The supply chain operated under the mindset of continuous improvement as researchers worked to perfect every step of the chain.</p>
<h2>Computerization!</h2>
<p>The ‘60s and ‘70s saw the birth of business computers (IBM!). This innovation drastically changed the way records were kept and managed. Computers also gave the supply chain industry opportunities to grow and reimagine itself. Randomized warehouse storage, truck routing, and optimization of inventory all became possible due to new computer software. The road ahead had never seemed more open.</p>
<h2>Pop Music and Logistics</h2>
<p>We may remember the ‘80s as a time ruled by Cyndi Lauper, MJ, and Prince but the supply chain remembers the ‘80s as a time of logistics. Computer software allowed greater planning within the production chain. It became easier to protect companies’ bottom lines if they took advantage of new spreadsheets, route planning, and map-based interfaces. As logistics gained attention, the National Council of Physical Distribution Management changed into the Council of Logistics Management (CLM). It was the ‘80s! Who doesn’t love a new stage name?</p>
<h2>Introducing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)</h2>
<p>It may be shocking but it has been over thirty years since the supply chain experienced its last transformative change. ERPs hit the scene in the ‘90s and at the time it was revolutionary (for a five-minute history lesson on ERPs, <a href="https://www.recurrency.com/post/a-brief-history-of-enterprise-resource-planning-erp">click here</a>). Teams across one company were all given access to the same data simultaneously. This new “single source of truth” brought collaboration and cohesiveness to businesses. But then what? Sure, the incorporation of cloud software in the 2010’s helped some. But many businesses still operate on aging on-premise hardware. The supply chain didn’t just hit a roadblock. It broke down in need of a new engine.</p>
<h2>A Future With Recurrency</h2>
<p>The Recurrency team built the necessary new engine. It’s time to go from hardware to software. Recurrency is an intelligence layer for your ERP that maximizes profitability, optimizes workflows, and protects customer loyalty. This highly automated platform is designed to be integrated with most legacy ERPs in less than 48 hours. At-a-glance data analysis, lightning fast search results, and intelligent business recommendations for your sales and purchasing agents all work to help your business hit the road with the pedal to the metal. Whether it’s purchasing, sales, or operations, give Recurrency the wheel and then watch what happens to your business.</p>
<p>Book a <a href="https://www.recurrency.com/demo">demo</a> today to experience your new business engine. It&#8217;s been 100 years in the making.</p>


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Blog-Cover-SupplyChainEvolved

Once we moved from buying bread at the local baker to importing goods from across the ocean, the supply chain needed innovation.

timelineblog

How the Supply Chain Evolved

Let's take a quick look at how the supply chain has become what it is today. 

How The Supply Chain Has Evolved Over 100 Years - Recurrency

How Black Friday Will Affect the Supply Chain (What to Expect and Do)

Wes Finley

<p>A good operations team is critical to your business. While juggling lots of different hats, these are the people who show up first to put out fires and leave meetings last. Balancing day-to-day management, service, finance, HR, business strategy, and whatever else lands in their inbox is no small feat. Don’t make your operations team struggle with software too.</p>
<p>Recurrency makes daily scavenger hunts (or wild goose chases) for singular pieces of data a thing of the past. The sun has set on the days of switching between platforms, lost spreadsheets, and scribbled handwritten notes. It’s a new morning with Recurrency.</p>
<h2><strong>Everything at a glance</strong></h2>
<p>Managers need a bird’s eye view from the top of the mountain, but they don’t always have the time to climb up there. Recurrency gives you a lift. As soon as you log into Recurrency you’re greeted with all the information you need for the day. Your new landing dashboard holds metrics like Revenue YoY and Gross Margin YoY, providing business analysis at a glance. Sales and gross margin percentage for different (and customizable) periods are all organized and available for quick checks throughout the day. With Recurrency on your side, you’ll be seeing how far ahead you are from where you started.</p>
<p>Your dashboard can also be personalized. Let us know what you need to see every day and we’ll make sure it’s front and center. <a href="https://www.recurrency.com/post/how-erp-features-are-made-at-recurrency">Unusually good customer service is the norm for the Recurrency team.</a></p>
<h2><strong>One source</strong></h2>
<p>Your ERP should be your single source of truth. However, the time suck of digging through endless pages, forms, or tabs to find what you need can kill the day. Competing sources of information can only confuse a business.</p>
<p>Let’s be honest: we dread lost time. Even worse is lost time that can’t be recovered. Before Recurrency, checking up on your business meant spending precious time compiling comparative data from different platforms and spreadsheets. One screen over are ten emails in your inbox that need attention and fires that need to be extinguished. But with Recurrency? We’re fully integrated with your ERP, so all the data you need is organized in one place. You’ll have a single source for checking your business’ pulse.</p>
<h2><strong>Say goodbye to typos</strong></h2>
<p>No one likes data entry. It’s a tedious process and it usually results in overlooked typos that hurt data reports in the long run &#8211; is there an extra zero on that purchase order? What’s that extra period doing in that contact’s email?</p>
<p>Recurrency can copy and paste any field into a spreadsheet. That’s not all. The data inputted into Recurrency is always cleaned. By finding duplicates, synthesizing records, and auto-categorizing outliers to reduce their influence in key calculations, Recurrency is able to help keep your workbook spotless. You’re confident every data comparison was made with clean gloves and without contamination.</p>
<h2><strong>A long to-do list</strong></h2>
<p>Your team is often racing from one job to the next and it can be hard to keep track of what’s done and what’s not. Let’s simplify things and bring order to the chaos. Recurrency’s built-in task management system helps you streamline the most turbulent days. No more stacks of hastily scribbled notes or post-its, no more random emails floating in the inbox. Tasks in Recurrency are assignable, and integrate with your email client as well, so those reminders and notifications are already where you’re working. Optimize your productivity and get home earlier.</p>
<h2><strong>How about tomorrow?</strong></h2>
<p>The last thing your IT team needs to worry about is another six-to-twelve month integration process. So don’t.</p>
<p>Most Recurrency integrations are completed in less than 48 hours. That’s right, two (two!) days or less and you’re up and running. We designed a platform that is fully backward compatible with existing ERP systems. Oh, and we take care of the training too.</p>
<p>So, let’s get started tomorrow &#8212; morning. Book a <a href="https://www.recurrency.com/demo">demo</a> today.</p>


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Blog-Cover-RecurrencyOptimizes

The sun has set on the days of switching between platforms, lost spreadsheets, and scribbled handwritten notes. It’s a new morning with Recurrency.

Managers need a bird’s eye view from the top of the mountain, but they don’t always have the time to climb up there.

The sun has set on the days of operations switching between platforms, lost spreadsheets, and scribbled handwritten notes. It’s a new morning with Recurrency.

Recurrency optimizes your operations team - Recurrency

Supply Chain Disruption Made Me Buy an Old Prius [Update]

<p>Imagine a long line of dominos. Maybe you lined them up when you were a kid. The best part was watching them fall. And when they didn’t, it was a disappointment and you tried to figure out where you went wrong.</p>
<p>But what if you did nothing wrong? It can happen, as you can’t design for everything. A business supply chain is like dominos, and the world didn’t design for a global pandemic (or ships getting stuck in the Panama Canal). The result? Sadly, lots of upright dominos and empty shelves.</p>
<p>We all know the supply chain right now is in shambles. Trucks, rail, ships, even labor: everything is struggling to catch up. The pandemic forced a lot of businesses to downsize and consolidate their resources and as the world returns to “normal,” the rapid increase in demand for goods and services continues to greatly outpace supply. To be clear, efforts are being made. Since January, businesses have opened jobs <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/blog/2021/06/17/why-the-pandemic-has-disrupted-supply-chains/">at a rate of 540,000 per month</a> and tried to keep up with orders. But we’ve lost efficiency and speed and in some cases replaced it with hope and prayer.</p>
<h2>A slow road (literally)</h2>
<p><img loading="lazy" class="alignnone wp-image-338 size-full" src="https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/pexels-photo-2226457-e1635797424296.jpg" alt="Cargo slow down" width="1600" height="784" /></p>
<p>Part of the problem is structural. Most of the United States cargo is moved by trucks after being unloaded at a port or railyard. But right now we are seeing massive traffic jams and backlogs at these areas delaying shipping and affecting the supply chain as a whole. In September, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/22/cargo-ships-traffic-jam-los-angeles-california">62 ships waited offshore to unload cargo in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach</a>. These jams happen due to the scarcity of available trucks and drivers ready to pick up cargo. The long queue does not pair well with the increased number of orders for international goods.</p>
<p>With the loss of speed and spike in demand, shipping prices go up. According to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2021/supply-chain-issues/">the Washington Post</a>, in September “the median cost of shipping a standard rectangular metal container from China to the West Coast of the United States hit a record $20,586, almost twice what it cost in July, which was twice what it cost in January, according to the Freightos index.”</p>
<h2>Time to plan ahead</h2>
<p>The pressure on the supply chain will only increase as the holiday season approaches quickly. Time is not exactly on our side as obstacles arise to slow down different aspects of the chain. This means that businesses need to focus on planning ahead on their shipments and watching their inventory levels carefully. Strategically ordering ahead is not a new business concept, though. We have a user who knows to order six months prior to the Chinese New Year in preparation for delays. But right now there is no magic timeline to get around the supply chain issues. What’s needed is a quick look into the future.</p>
<h2>The Ballast</h2>
<p>The good news is that the right business software is helping some businesses do well in the middle of our supply nightmare. Innovative machine learning algorithms and AI can help plan for the future in ways humans cannot. While some businesses are standing out with <a href="https://time.com/6082576/pandemic-new-businesses/">success stories</a>, Recurrency’s AI is here to help everyone who is ready to succeed in any business climate and even during a global pandemic. Recurrency is like a ship’s ballast: it offers stability in the strongest seas.</p>
<h2>Features geared towards tomorrow</h2>
<p><a href="https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/forecasting-step-2.webp"><img loading="lazy" class="alignnone wp-image-339 size-full" src="https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/forecasting-step-2.webp" alt="forecasting-step-2" width="1044" height="546" srcset="https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/forecasting-step-2.webp 1044w, https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/forecasting-step-2-300x157.webp 300w, https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/forecasting-step-2-1024x536.webp 1024w, https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/forecasting-step-2-768x402.webp 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1044px) 100vw, 1044px" /></a></p>
<p>How so? First, Recurrency’s Demand Forecasting feature is tailor-made for purchasers to avoid stockouts and overstock. That prescient look into the future becomes possible with this feature. Dynamic Pricing will suggest relevant prices to you that adhere to your company’s pricing rules, follow industry trends, and consider your customer’s history. This feature will help do something you might otherwise think impossible: grow your profitability during this supply chain crisis by helping you <a href="https://www.recurrency.com/products/purchasing">control your margins</a>.</p>
<p>Recurrency’s Upsells feature will be a close friend, too. Upsells recommends additional products your customer likely needs but is forgetting, and it can do it before the end of your quoteflow (which often takes one minute). Last, let’s make sure your customer doesn’t run out of items they need only to contribute to our supply chain crisis. The Customer Reorder Prediction tool is all about timing: it tells you when your customers likely need to restock their supply, based on their historical usage patterns and other data points. You’ll keep their business running smoothly and make sure you don’t miss a possible sale.</p>
<h2>Regain your momentum</h2>
<p>We all know supply chain problems are slowing business down. But now you have access to the forward-thinking software to fight back. Recurrency has its eye on the future and on your supply chain. Let’s knock those dominos down. <a href="https://hubs.li/H0Z8cBc0">Book a demo today.</a></p>


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Blog-Cover-SupplyChainMoving

We all know the supply chain right now is in shambles. Trucks, rail, ships, even labor: everything is struggling to catch up. But we’ve lost efficiency and speed and in some cases replaced it with hope and prayer. 

A business supply chain is like dominos, and the world didn’t design for a global pandemic.

We all know the supply chain right now is in shambles. Trucks, rail, ships, even labor is struggling to catch up. We’ve lost efficiency replaced it with hope and prayer.

How to get the supply chain moving again - Recurrency

Stay Relevant on Pricing with Recurrency

<p>We naturally look to constants &#8212; like the North Star &#8212; to give us stability during rocky times. Maybe it’s returning to a favorite song or book or, as in my case, maybe it’s Whiskey. More on that later.</p>
<h2>Unstable supply chains require reliable pricing</h2>
<p>The unstable supply chain has made it nigh impossible to count on reliable prices. Whether filling your gas tank or buying lumber for a construction project, prices are volatile. It’s no fun for a customer to feel jerked around on price; they start to think it’s a losing game. We respect our customers, and yours too, which is why Recurrency’s Dynamic Pricing feature is different. We prompt you with prices that follow industry trends while also adhering to your company’s pricing rules. We optimize pricing <em>for you</em> while at the same time setting you up for the golden ticket: long-term customer relationships.</p>
<p>How do we do it? Recurrency works to determine exactly how much your customer is <i>willing</i> to pay. We find the magic number in data &#8212; lots of it. Recurrency ingests billions of public and private data points, leveraging more information that the mind can hold to perform calculations the mind simply can&#8217;t. It’ll find every hidden pattern and solve all the riddles in your data. Plus, there’s no need to worry about transferring data into Recurrency as our software is fully backwards compatible with your existing ERP. In other words, Recurrency is the answer to the question you’ve been asking: what the heck is the perfect price?</p>
<h2>You’re in control</h2>
<p>There is so much nuance in pricing: jobs and contracts, most favored customer clauses, government pricing rules, quantity breaks, discount groups –– lions and tigers and bears, too! For the sales team, understanding the market landscape while keeping endless nuance in mind is an impossible task. That’s why Recurrency is built to keep you in the driver’s seat; our system is built to fully integrate and enforce your existing pricing logic, as well as give you powerful tools to improve it.</p>
<p>But we’re not just number crunchers. Because we rely on your data, we also make sure to sanitize it. Traditional ERP systems have data clogged with errors and information that’s as out-of-date as yesterday’s weather. Garbage in &#8212; well, you know. Our machine learning algorithms and data science won’t work without trustworthy data. So we clean it thoroughly. Leave this part to us; we like dealing with a mess. How do we clean it? We auto-detect duplicates, merging records where we can, and we also auto-categorize outliers, reducing their influence in key calculations.</p>
<h2>One minute quotes</h2>
<p>Now, what’s better than optimal pricing? Answer: optimal pricing <i>fast!</i> At Recurrency, our philosophy is that data intelligence is only valuable if it’s easy to use in a business process. That’s why pricing is tightly coupled with your quoting and ordering workflow: carefully designed to give you optimal efficiency. Ever hit all the green lights on the way home? It feels like that, only in the fast lane. With typo-tolerant instant search and parallelized price validation, making a hundred line-item quote can take under a minute in Recurrency. (Yeah, we know.) On the go? Make the quote on your mobile device! Then hit the road and leave your pricing worries behind.</p>
<p>All businesses, from small to midsize to Fortune 500, can benefit from Dynamic Pricing, and we’re excited and grateful that more are partnering with us every day. With Recurrency, these businesses are able to breathe again. They have confidence in their ability to set the right prices to increase revenue and improve margins.</p>
<p>Back to my Whiskey. The reliable pooch is waiting for me and she’s wagging her tail like clockwork. Book a <a href="https://form.typeform.com/to/C3C5Pjtj?utm_campaign=General%20Follow-around&amp;utm_source=Demo%20Form">demo</a> today and download our <a href="https://content.recurrency.com/dynamic-pricing-whitepaper-gate">white paper</a> to learn more about our Price Optimization feature.</p>


blog-cover-priceoptimization

Blog-Cover-PriceOptimization

Supply chain issues are inflating costs for distributors; Recurrency's dynamic pricing protects your gross margins by finding the perfect price every time.

Supply chain issues are inflating costs for distributors; Recurrency's dynamic pricing protects your gross margins by finding the perfect price.

Price Optimization: Finding the Perfect Price - Recurrency

How The Supply Chain Has Evolved Over 100 Years

<p>The supply chain crisis is a problem for everyone. Bad forecasting means higher prices, longer shipping times, and occasional shortages are annoyances at best, but, for an unlucky few of us, these issues are land mines waiting to blow up in our faces.</p>
<p>My personal explosion happened on August 9th when my Chevy Volt refused to start, charge, or do pretty much anything at all. The error codes I pulled were concerning. To say I was worried was an understatement.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-329 size-full" src="https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screen-Shot-2021-10-25-at-10.02.23-AM.png" alt="" width="576" height="314" srcset="https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screen-Shot-2021-10-25-at-10.02.23-AM.png 576w, https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screen-Shot-2021-10-25-at-10.02.23-AM-300x164.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 576px) 100vw, 576px" /></p>
<h2>Good News!</h2>
<p>Fortunately, I checked my warranty information and found that I had an 8-year 100k warranty. My busted Volt only had 53k miles. So I towed her to the nearest dealer &#8212; 20 miles away.</p>
<p>Freeland Chevrolet traced the failures to a Battery Energy Control Module (BECM). It wasn’t a problem with the engine or the battery, just the control module that monitors charging and voltage. And, most importantly, it was covered under my warranty.</p>
<p>With a quick google search I found that my problem wasn’t unique. Volt forums had <a href="https://www.gm-volt.com/threads/2018-battery-energy-control-module-becm.339631/">threads dozens of pages long</a> where annoyed owners griped about their broken BECMs. There was even <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWYtq0hxhQg&amp;t=4983s">a helpful Youtube video on how to remove and replace the BECM</a>, if you are the Tony Stark of DIY auto repairs.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-330 size-full" src="https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screen-Shot-2021-10-25-at-10.12.03-AM.png" alt="Fixing a BECM" width="861" height="536" srcset="https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screen-Shot-2021-10-25-at-10.12.03-AM.png 861w, https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screen-Shot-2021-10-25-at-10.12.03-AM-300x187.png 300w, https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screen-Shot-2021-10-25-at-10.12.03-AM-768x478.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 861px) 100vw, 861px" /></p>
<p>Then I got a disappointing call from the dealership.</p>
<p>“Unfortunately, we don’t have the part available,” the mechanic shared. “So it may not be ready till the end of the week.”</p>
<p>That’s not so bad, I thought. I can share my wife’s minivan for a week and grab a Lyft as needed.</p>
<h2>But it was so bad. So very very bad.</h2>
<p>The week came and went without a follow up on the repair. On Monday I got the bad news. “Uh, the BECM you need is back ordered. We won’t be able to get it shipped until September 20th.”</p>
<p>“But I need a car,” I replied. “My wife is already annoyed with me taking her minivan everywhere&#8230; And I&#8217;m annoyed I have to drive a minivan.”</p>
<p>“If you want you can pick up your Volt and use it until the part arrives. You can get it to start if you open the hood, disconnect the 12v battery, then reconnect it.”</p>
<p>I begrudgingly picked up my sad broken Volt from the dealer and hoped I wouldn’t have to use the pop-the-hood trick too often.</p>
<h2>Embarrassing my son</h2>
<p>We moved to Nashville earlier this year and my son, Parker, just started the 2nd grade. He was very excited for in person classes again. But he was less excited to have me pick him up after an unfortunate incident&#8230;</p>
<p>“It will just take a second!” I yelled to the traffic monitor &#8212; and the hundred cars waiting behind me to pick up their kids. “I just need to open the hood real quick to get it started!”</p>
<p>Parker slumped as low as he could into my back seat. To this day, whenever I tell him I will pick him up he immediately confirms, “Not in the Volt, right?”</p>
<h2>Still no BECM</h2>
<p>The expected delivery date came and went. Still no BECM. I became frustrated and escalated my issues to Chevrolet corporate in every way possible: I called; I filed a BBB complaint; I tweeted angry messages.</p>
<p>Funny enough, the social media team from Chevrolet was been the most responsive channel. They call the dealer, Freeland Chevrolet, every week to check the status for me and follow up with a twitter DM.</p>
<h2>Complete demand forecasting failure</h2>
<p>Clearly, Chevrolet did not accurately plan for this situation. Battery Energy Control Modules are in high demand. Chip shortages are stalling development. And shipping from China is moving at a glacial pace.</p>
<p>While I don’t know the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software Chevrolet uses, I know it didn’t prepare them for this situation. With good logistics, it doesn’t matter how long it takes to build or ship a part. The part is available when it is needed. Chevrolet did not have good logistics.</p>
<p>Demand forecasting is the ability to predict how much you need of a specific product, and when and where to procure, or buy, that product so that you have it when you need it. You don’t want to buy too much, because storage costs money. And you don’t want to buy too little, or you will run out.</p>
<p>For instance, food distributors lose 3.2% of revenue when food spoils and an additional 4.1% when high demand items are out of stock. (<a href="http://Read the full case study.">Read the full case study</a>) But, Chevrolet is not a food distributor. They should have BECMs on hand.</p>
<h2>Hey Chevrolet! Why not try Recurrency?</h2>
<p>It is now late October. I&#8217;ve gone three months without a working car because of Chevrolet&#8217;s complete demand forecasting failure.</p>
<p>To be fair, I lost patience over a month ago and spent $5000 on a 2010 Toyota Prius. I figured if any car had an abundance of spare parts it was a Prius.</p>
<p>I still get updates from my Chevrolet friends on twitter, but they have no idea where the part is.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-331 size-full" src="https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screen-Shot-2021-10-25-at-11.15.34-AM.png" alt="Chat with Chevrolet" width="572" height="467" srcset="https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screen-Shot-2021-10-25-at-11.15.34-AM.png 572w, https://recurrency.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screen-Shot-2021-10-25-at-11.15.34-AM-300x245.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 572px) 100vw, 572px" /></p>
<p>Perhaps most frustrating, I work for a company that specializes in AI-powered demand forecasting for distributors, like Chevrolet. Recurrency uses historical sales data, and external trend modeling to identify exactly when to restock.</p>
<blockquote><p>Recurrency demand forecasts have a 61% lower mean absolute percentage error (MAPE). Even when compared with advanced methods, such as Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA), Recurrency still comes out ahead.</p></blockquote>
<p>I’m in marketing, so I don’t know much about MAPE or ARIMA, but I know that a 61% forecasting improvement by Chevrolet could have saved me 3 months of frustration and $5000 of Prius.</p>
<p>I plan to sell my Volt whenever it is fixed. And I know that GM/Chevrolet won’t be my top choice for a more reliable replacement. I can’t risk another demand forecasting problem leaving me car-less for months. And Parker can’t risk me turning him into the 2nd grade school pickup pariah.</p>


blog-cover-wes-betterforecasting-1

Blog-Cover-Wes-BetterForecasting (1)

And Chevrolet needs better forecasting to get my Chevy Volt fixed.

The supply chain is a problem for everyone. Higher prices, longer shipping times, and occasional shortages are annoyances at best, but for an unlucky few of us, they are land mines.

We need better forecasting to fix the supply chain crisis - Recurrency

Recurrency optimizes your operations team

<p>Legacy ERP companies are software vendors, not software builders. Their goal is to sell you a product. After that, their job is done. Recurrency is the antithesis of this sales model. Our job, or at least our favorite job, happens after you partner with us. That’s when we build, test, improve, refactor, and rebuild so that every feature meets your needs. It’s a process unique to Recurrency, and we’re proud of it. So, let’s talk about it.</p>
<h2>Shiny new features</h2>
<p>The Recurrency platform has a lot of features. There are our shiny ones: Dynamic Pricing, Customer Reorder Prediction, Upselling, and Demand Forecasting. These features will catch your eye. And they should: we designed them to. Your current ERP doesn’t work to make you money and these four features do. But we’ve got other features that you’ll quickly appreciate, like our search function. It may sound ordinary, but ask your sales rep if they can search products within their inventory within milliseconds. Nine times out of ten, you’ll see them laugh. “Search?,” they’ll say. “I waste my life waiting for search.” It’s not the flashiest feature, but typo-tolerant instant search will improve your quality of life. Our search frees you from ordering a stress ball off Amazon and lets you say goodbye to buffering pages.</p>
<p>These tools are solutions we set out to build when Recurrency was founded. We saw a supply-chain industry that was held back by ERPs that refused to innovate, not because they didn’t have the time or money, but because innovation was and remains outside their immediate financial interest.</p>
<h2>Developing Recurrency</h2>
<p>Our team likes hard problems; they mix well with our insurmountable work ethic. We dreamed up an automated platform that seamlessly integrates with a company’s legacy ERP and uses machine learning algorithms to transform a good business into a great business. This platform would have tools that could make intelligent business recommendations from sales to purchasing, protecting your margins and shielding your bottom lines. Sure, it was a big dream. One that, to us, was attainable. Today, Recurrency is that dream. Sure, we’ve got new users and companies on the platform every week but that doesn’t slow us down or stop us from innovating. Beautiful suits need to be tailored (and occasionally refitted) because every body type is slightly different. Recurrency is that suit and we want to make sure every edge and groove hug your business perfectly, to keep you looking your personal best.</p>
<h2>Onboarding and customer support</h2>
<p>Implementing Recurrency takes less than one day. Full stop. But that’s not the last time you hear from us. Our Recurrency team likes to check in with our users. We want to know what you like and dislike. Why? Because we’ll fix what you don’t like in real time. We’ll even tell you what we&#8217;re planning on building so you can help us make it better. Have an idea about a feature you’re using? Let us know and we’ll get your idea in our next round of updates. In our last engineering sprint (a two week window with our engineers focused around one issue) we closed around 80 customer requests. Responsiveness, flexibility, and drive are the core values here.</p>
<h2>Building new features &#8212; based on feedback</h2>
<p>Just last week we had a user explain to us that he had two large inventory sites so he had to click on each individual product shown on his Recurrency inventory page to know where it was. This made transferring products tedious. “No problem,” we told him. Within a few days we updated his Recurrency inventory page to include geographic filters. To say he was pleased would be an understatement. Removing that extra small step in his day may seem like a miniscule advancement, but the way we see it is this: the small things are the big things. He probably had to click on hundreds of products a day just to check where they were. A product inefficiency like that doesn’t fly with our engineering team.</p>
<p>Another time a user explained to us that he mainly uses the quote flow on his phone, because he works on the go. At the time we were considering making the flow more complex but, based on his feedback, we made a 180 and focused on simplifying the quote flow for mobile devices. Both our desktop and mobile users responded with positive feedback. Oh, we love feedback.</p>
<p>The Recurrency team looks forward to calls from customers detailing their successes and triumphs. We enjoy building features so that we get messages saying, “love the new update.” However, we also want to hear about what isn’t working. Some companies may believe their product is perfect and doesn’t need fixing (you might even be using their products as your ERP). That’s not our ethic. Tell us where the heartburns are, and we won’t turn the lights off until we can send you an email with good news.</p>
<h2>Success through iteration</h2>
<p>Exciting light bulb moments are not the goals during Recurrency product meetings. Yes, that would make a good story, but we’re much more focused on continuous improvement. Our building process is iterative. We build updates, give it to users, receive and dissect responses, and then build again. This process is the one that wins the long game and that’s the only game we’re interested in playing.</p>
<p>Recurrency is a unique company. Our drive for unusually good customer service and customer communication mixed with a genuine love of building quality software is what makes us a rare suit. So why don’t you get a fitting room, try us on, and we’ll make sure every stitch flatters you. If you like, tell your friends who you’re wearing.</p>
<p><a href="https://hubs.li/H0Z8cBc0">Schedule a demo</a> today.</p>


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Blog-Cover-RecurrencyManifest

The Recurrency platform has a lot of shiny features: Dynamic Pricing, Customer Reorder Prediction, Upselling, and Demand Forecasting.

A company built on flawless software and unusually good customer service. 

The Recurrency platform has a lot of features: Dynamic Pricing, Customer Reorder Prediction, Upselling, and Demand Forecasting.

How Features Are Made at Recurrency - Recurrency

How to get the supply chain moving again

<p>If you struggle to understand why something is the way it is, then often all you have to do is look to the past. Why do some people use two spaces after a period instead of one? Probably because they learned how to type on a monospaced typewriter — though they also might like driving the rest of us mad. Why have you promised not to plant a pumpkin seed near your backyard again? Because you learned the hard way that you can have a lawn or a pumpkin patch, but not both. Figuring out the supply chain industry works the same way, especially when it comes to understanding its core technology: Enterprise Resource Planning software, or ERPs. Let’s hit backspace and find the seedlings that sprouted the modern day ERP ecosystem.</p>
<h1>The first ERP</h1>
<p>The seeds of today’s ecosystem were planted in the 1960s, when companies would manage their operations using homegrown inventory and performance tracking systems: custom-built software on the earliest of commercial computers. IBM — the chief purveyor of the early computer hardware — was the first to offer reusable tracking software as a product, which they christened the Material Requirements Planning system, or MRP. Fun fact: the first MRP ever implemented was for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_Corporation">J.I. Case Company</a>, an agriculture and construction equipment manufacturer out of Racine, Wisconsin. Though it was state-of-the-art at the time, the original MRP could do very little compared to today’s ERPs. If you showed an original MRP user from J.I. Case an ERP paired with Recurency, they would probably look to the sky next for flying cars. Still, the program got the job done. It could reasonably manage inventory and financials, and even had some basic purchasing and delivery tools that would be expanded upon in later ERPs.</p>
<p>The 1980s brought a lot of change. It was a time of late night Miami Vice episodes, fluorescent highlighter clothes, MC Hammer pants, and hosting the Olympics while the whole country watched. The 80s also brought the MRP II system. Some new features were added to help with scheduling and combining data sets between departments, but the software was still incomplete with respect to the broad range of activities users needed. However, the future seemed bright.</p>
<p>While SAP, ostensibly the first ERP system, was founded in 1972 — by five former IBM employees — the transition from MRP to ERP didn’t really begin until the 1990s. That’s when the technical capabilities matured to allow ERPs to do what MRPs couldn’t: give individual teams across a company the ability to access the same information simultaneously. This unification of all business data — from purchasing to inventory management to sales to general ledger — into a “single source of truth” was an innovation of immeasurable value, allowing large corporations to build a consistent and productive work environment. This technical upgrade was joined by additional functionality, such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and early marketing tools.</p>
<h1>Stagnation takes hold</h1>
<p>In the thirty years since, though, not much has changed. The advent of the cloud in the 2000s and 2010s — itself one of the most significant shifts in the history of computers — barely registered, with well over half of all ERP implementations still running on expensive and difficult-to-maintain on-premise hardware.</p>
<p>It’s safe to say the weeds of the industry are now showing. It’s almost as if the major players have turned to overselling decades-old software as a way to sell expensive professional implementation services and extractive maintenance contracts….</p>
<h1>The Recurrency evolution</h1>
<p>It’s against this backdrop of stagnation that Recurrency was founded. In a sentence, Recurrency is an automation and artificial intelligence platform for your legacy ERP that brings all the best innovation of the last thirty years to your business in just one click. By integrating with your existing system, Recurrency can offer streamlined sales and purchasing workflows, eye-blink fast user experience, and intelligent recommendations that help grow your business — all without the time and hassle of a traditional ERP project.</p>
<p>It’s long past time to have fun gardening again with an innovative ERP. And now that you know the history, make sure you’re on the right side of it.</p>
<p>To learn more about Recurrency <a href="https://meeting.recurrency.ai/meetings/recurrency/demo">book a demo today</a>.</p>


blog-cover-abriefhistory

Blog-Cover-ABriefHistory

Today's supply chain needs predictive forecasting.

The seeds of today’s ERP ecosystem were planted in the 1960s.

While SAP, ostensibly the first ERP system, was founded in 1972 — by five former IBM employees — the transition from MRP to ERP didn’t really begin until the 1990s.

Recurrency: The Manifest

Revenue Intelligence for Distribution

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Supply Chain Disruption Made Me Buy an Old Prius [Update]Supply Chain Disruption Made Me Buy an Old Prius [Update]

Stay Relevant on Pricing with RecurrencyStay Relevant on Pricing with Recurrency

How The Supply Chain Has Evolved Over 100 YearsHow The Supply Chain Has Evolved Over 100 Years

Recurrency optimizes your operations teamRecurrency optimizes your operations team

How to get the supply chain moving againHow to get the supply chain moving again

Price Optimization: Finding the Perfect PricePrice Optimization: Finding the Perfect Price