FonQ Case

Customer challenge

In the COVID years, spending in Home & Living was high, specifically in online purchases, so fonQ experienced a turnover peak during corona. fonQ had invested in sales growth, but unfortunately it did not continue afterwards. The investments have resulted in a high, non-flexible cost basis. To reduce costs, logistical efficiency had to be made. UC Group was asked to make a proposal for this.

Approach

With the help of a logistics consultant, UC Group set to work and a party was quickly found that wanted to rent the vacant warehouse space. “This was good news because it eliminated the scenario of full outsourcing and thus guaranteed employment for permanent staff.” To bring the workforce in line with order volumes, new schedules were created and permanent staff were trained to be deployed in multiple departments. “Of course, this was a tough change. We guided the people with a temporary contract to other work outside fonQ.” In the field of transport, an efficiency improvement was made by halving the number of carriers. UC Group's logistics consultant: “This saves not only in administrative actions and coordination, but also in IT costs and in keeping track of performance indicators.”

Results

• Within three months, all measures in the advisory report were implemented.
• The leases of excess logistics equipment were all terminated.
• The warehouse space was organized more efficiently and the part that fonQ no longer used itself was leased to an external party
• The permanent employees were “cross-trained” and new schedules were introduced so that it was no longer necessary to hire temporary workers
• The pool of carriers was halved, of course without sacrificing delivery performance to customers.
• All the measures mentioned above ultimately resulted in a 20% reduction in logistics costs