Efficient Consumer Response Ireland (ECR) was established in 1998 to promote and educate the Irish Business Community about Efficient Consumer Response and the benefits it brings. It is the official ECR Organisation in Ireland and is a member of ECR Europe. The board is comprised of Senior Executives from a selection of retailers & suppliers operating in Ireland whose purpose it is to represent the sectors within which they trade.

ORIGINS OF ECR

Working Together to Fulfil Consumer Wishes Better, Faster and a Less Cost.

The ECR ("Efficient Consumer Response") movement effectively began in the mid-nineties and was characterised by the emergence of new principles of collaborative management along the supply chain. It was understood that companies can serve consumers better, faster and at less cost by working together with trading partners.
At the heart of ECR was a business environment characterised by dramatic advances in information technology, growing competition, global business structures and consumer demand focused on better choice, service, convenience, quality, freshness and safety and the increasing movements of goods across international borders aided by the internal European market.

This new reality required a fundamental reconsideration of the most effective way of delivering the right products to consumers at the right price. Non-standardized operational practices and the rigid separation of the traditional roles of manufacturer and retailer threatened to block the supply chain unnecessarily and failed to exploit the synergies that came from powerful new information technologies and planning tools.

To better serve the consumer, ECR set out to invert the traditional model and break down non-productive barriers. The impacts were extensive and continue to resonate across industry.

Focus Areas of ECR

There are four focus areas under ECR. These areas are broken down further into core and advanced improvement concepts. They form the basis of the ECR Global Scorecard.

Individually these concepts are commonly known and well documented methods to improve effectiveness and efficiency. However, when applied under ECR, they have a distinct difference

• They are intended to be addressed as an integrated set, not individually.

Challenges and key benefits of ECR

Implementing ECR means dramatic change in current business practices. ECR is about redesigning the processes, altering paradigms and changing attitudes. Proper management of the ECR process is effective in mitigating resistance and increasing co-operation. A clear communication by top management of the benefits and rewards of ECR will make the process more effective.

ECR challenges many existing approaches, which can often lead to inefficiency. Trading partners are asked to work together in order to increase value to the consumer. The intensifying competition amongst trading partners often presents an apparent barrier to achieving this. However, just the opposite is true – ECR allows companies to seek a competitive advantage by demonstrating their superior ability in working with trading partners to add value for the consumer.
Before they are ready to start with ECR companies should ask themselves:

• Which activities are done in different departments?
• How are these activities related to each other?
• Is there a more efficient way that we can organise our business?
• What about costs and profitability? Do we have an insight into the costs and profitability at product, distribution channel and customer levels?
• What kind of information is available in the different departments, and how can we use this information to create greater value to the business as a whole?

Companies, which are not well prepared internally to pursue ECR, are in danger of exposing this fundamental weakness when starting to work together with their trading partners. And companies that are unable to work effectively with their trading partners will fall increasingly behind in the competition and falter in their efforts to meet changing consumer demand

ECR Operating Principles
1. Generating Demand
ECR Practice requires both trading partners:

to adhere to supply chain management standards and protocols recommended by ECR Europe;
to jointly define a set of objectives and processes for optimising product planning, forecasting and replenishment as well as in-store logistics:
to achieve full visibility of product flow along the supply chain so that consumer demand is always met
to jointly make efforts to move to paperless transactions (e.g. using data flow to clear deliveries and invoices);
to jointly define a set of objectives and processes for optimising on shelf availability;
to apply a commonly agreed method in order to evaluate total costs and benefits related to supply chain changes;
to share benefits and risks whilst adopting a total supply chain view;
to jointly define a set of business Key Performance Indicators to measure results against these objectives

2. Managing the Supply Chain Efficiently
ECR Practice requires both trading partners:

to adhere to supply chain management standards and protocols recommended by ECR Europe;
to jointly define a set of objectives and processes for optimising product planning, forecasting and replenishment as well as in-store logistics:
to achieve full visibility of product flow along the supply chain so that consumer demand is always met
to jointly make efforts to move to paperless transactions (e.g. using data flow to clear deliveries and invoices);
to jointly define a set of objectives and processes for optimising on shelf availability;
to apply a commonly agreed method in order to evaluate total costs and benefits related to supply chain changes;
to share benefits and risks whilst adopting a total supply chain view;
to jointly define a set of business Key Performance Indicators to measure results against these objectives

3. Making Information-Based Decisions
ECR Practice requires both trading partners:

to exchange information in order to support business decisions;
to agree on a common process, cost effective for both partners, to systematically gather and/or exchange the best possible information in a structured way;
to establish a non-discriminatory and transparent process for evaluating the information leading to any business decision (e.g. KPI's, scorecards);
All information exchange between trading partners should happen in strict accordance with the applicable competition laws.

4. Organising to implement ECR
ECR Practice requires both trading partners:

to promote the ECR mindset and way of working to all management and staff;
to dedicate appropriately skilled resources from both sides in order to implement ECR Practice in pursuit of category benefits;
to invest in ECR Demand Generating, Supply Chain Management and Enabling practices only in pursuit of tangible and measurable business and category objectives;
to support ECR Practice in their trading agreement, however ECR Practice may not be linked to the trade terms;
to link personal / team rewards to the defined business KPI's.

5. Respecting competition law
ECR is designed to serve the interest of the consumer. ECR Practice may not be used to restrict competition between suppliers. Companies undertaking ECR projects should apply ECR Practice in strict respect of applicable competition laws. ECR Europe is committed to strong and fair competition in support of which competition guidelines are issued which focus on demand side projects; in particular they provide:

that no sensitive information should be exchanged between competitors; and
that along the supply chain itself, parties should not enter into agreements that restrict the other party in its freedom to set prices, choose trading partners, decide product assortments, and otherwise manage sales to consumers or other customers.