Dear Valued Client,

As we enter our 17^th year in business, we continue to ask ourselves what we can improve in the coming year and what new/core services will continue to add value to our client’s value chain. To that effect, we have complemented our reclamation center inspections with in-store audits, Food Bank donation verification and Exit Strategy planning to increase visibility on issues impacting the reverse supply chain. We’ve begun to heavily invest in our Business Intelligence platforms to create more sophisticated analytical environments, which will allow us to uncover additional savings opportunities for all of our clients. We also had another opportunity to share our insights on a survey conducted by R2N (Raftery Resource Network, Inc) for their study “Reverse Supply Chain Improvement Project” (sponsored by the FMI – GMA/NACDS participation) and our work on Promotional Analysis was sourced in Wipro’s Study “The Impact of Sales and Procurement on Reverse Logistics Management” (with the JIULT). Finally, we’d like to welcome our newest client in Pinnacle Foods Group and we look forward to our new partnership in 2011!

Since 2005, we’ve complimented our Unsaleable invoice audits with our “spot inspections” targeting problematic customers for product handling, damage & packaging analysis.  These periodic inspections have sent the correct message to the retail community in that our clients are not only engaged in “root causal analysis” but also want to “root out” undamaged seasonal, discontinued or products from poorly planned promotions from coming back through reclaim.  Moving into 2011, we will correlate a sampling of store audits and food bank contacts with most of our customer team inspections and work with our clients to ensure the results are being communicated back to the Retailers. It is our belief that this type of meaningful collaboration and dialogue opens up the future for mutually beneficial cost savings and process improvements.

In this complex environment of deduction disputes, it is critical to obtain current claims data to ensure billing errors and practices are corrected going forward and we have the best opportunity for repays since the issue is fairly recent.  Industry trends to migrate to web portals and web retrieval for deduction back-up greatly facilitates our ability as an organization to obtain information quicker for more timely decisions.  Improved “time-to-information and decision-making” capabilities coupled with our Associates’ superior Customer Service for their clients has propelled us to deliver the following overall payback results in 2010:

We are proud of  our Associates who collectively identified and chased approximately $4.9 million dollars in unsaleable invoice over-billings, excess deductions, repays and Supply Chain abuses.

We are also proud to report an average payback ratio across all active clients in 2010 in the double-digit range for our core analytical customer contact and business intelligence services.

For every dollar you invest in our services, we brought back an average of $10.00 +  in cost saving reduction opportunities for your Unsaleables Mgmt. team.  Driving Waste out of your bottom line !!

 

As we look forward to 2011 and beyond, Retailer Data Sharing is emerging as the Business Intelligence opportunity for the next 5+ years. Analyzing Retailer POS data gives our clients greater potential to realize the benefits of this type of collaboration (increased visibility to supply chain and promotional/demand/ seasonal planning to create leaner solutions/programs to maximize return). To that end, we are committed to creating information linkages for our clients to their retail counterparts to better manage fluctuating demand and protecting customer relationships for the long haul. We continue to embrace other “value-added” capabilities for our clients including: Cash Discounts/Under-Threshold, Coupons, Freight Claims and Promotional deduction disputes.

Our WBENC certification (Women’s Business Enterprise National Council) offers significant advantages to many of our clients seeking Supplier Diversity sub-contractor partnerships. We can be found on-line at www.wesleyassociates.com.  If there is anything we can do to enhance our services to meet your needs, please let us know and together we will create a solution!  P.S.: See 2010 highlights on the following page.

Regards,

Cynthia Wesley – President, Wesley Associates

 

Before we go to our yearly achievements, I would like to acknowledge all of our valued clients who were integral to our 2010 success including: Nestlé (since 1995), PepsiCo (Quaker-Tropicana-Gatorade) (since 1997), Tree Top (since 1998), Seneca Foods (2003), Diamond Foods Inc. (2003), Birds Eye Foods (2007) / Pinnacle Foods Group (09/2010) and Knouse Foods (since 2008); without the support we received from your teams, these accomplishments would not have been possible! We are in discussions with a few manufacturers in the CPG industry who may also be joining our clientele in the coming months. We are very thankful that we were able to realize these achievements, when collectively your domestic business segments represent ~$10 Billion Domestic dollars of your industry!

Past Success         +          Industry exposure, experience and findings          =        New Initiatives for 2011

(Click on images to enlarge)

In 2011, we will be placing more focus on Exit Strategies, Store Audits and our Business Intelligence platforms to enhance our services across our client base.

Dear Valued Client,

Each year, in order to gauge what we can do better in the coming year and what services add value to our client’s value chain, we look back at our organization’s accomplishments as well as the challenges we faced within the CPG industry and the reverse logistics channel in which we primarily operate. We couldn’t be prouder to announce that Wesley Associates has been voted for the second time as one of the Top 500 National / Top 100 PA emerging diverse businesses. As we enter our 16th year in business, we accept this industry acknowledgement with both pride and humility in knowing our valuable clients have paved the way for us in reaching this milestone. Having said that, we welcome our newest client, Roman Meal to our portfolio list.

Some of our toughest challenges this past year emerged in the ever increasing “negative dialogue/push back” environment re:customer-retailer shared responsibility and compensation for Unsaleable reimbursements and Policy disputes. No longer content to report on and advise our clients of abnormal spikes in quantities, our team actively engages our client’s sales/broker network to solicit real-time answers from the customer/client sales team as to why the excessive spike in volume through reclamation, holding the retailer accountable for unfavorable practices that reward their bottom line at the expense of our clients’. This has resulted in significant increases in reimbursements for quantities that should not have been claimed from the get-go sometimes in the form of checks, other times in the form of performance swaps and/or trade fund reductions.

We’ve complimented this analysis with our “spot inspection” business segment targeting problematic customer / centers / product damage & packaging analysis. Our “spot inspections” have sent the correct message to the retail community that our clients are not only engaged in “root causal” but also want to “root out” undamaged seasonal and discontinued product or poorly planned promotions from coming back through reclaim.

In this complex environment of deduction disputes, it is critical to obtain current claims data to ensure billing errors and practices are corrected going forward and we have the best opportunity for repays since the issue is fairly recent. Industry trends to migrate to web portals and web retrieval for deduction back-up greatly facilitates our ability as an organization to obtain information quicker for more timely decisions. Improved “time-to-information and decision-making” capabilities coupled with our Associates’ superior Customer Service for their clients has propelled us to deliver the following overall payback results in 2009:

We are proud to report that our Associates collectively identified and chased approximately $4 million dollars in unsaleable invoice over-billings/corrections, repays and Supply Chain abuses. We are also proud to report an average payback ratio of 6:1 including Gen/Admin and Claims Processing or 8:1 for our core analytical / customer contact services. For every dollar you invest in our services, we bring back an average of $6.00 back to the table in cost-saving reduction opportunities. You net the $5.00!!!

As we look forward to 2010 and beyond, Retailer Data Sharing is emerging as the Business Intelligence opportunity for the next 5-7 years. Analyzing Retailer POS data gives our clients greater potential to realize the benefits of this type of collaboration (increased visibility to supply chain and promotional / demand / seasonal planning to create leaner solutions/programs to maximize return). To that end, we are committed to creating information linkages for our clients to their retail counterparts to better manage fluctuating demand and protecting customer relationships for the long haul. We continue to embrace other “value-added” capabilities for our clients including: Cash Discounts/Under-Threshold, Coupons, Freight Claims and Promotional deduction disputes.

Our WBENC certification (Women’s Business Enterprise National Council) offers significant advantages to our clients seeking government contracts through their Supplier Diversity sub-contractor partnerships. If there is anything we can do to enhance our services to meet your needs in 2010, please let us know and together we will create a solution!

Sincerely,
Cynthia Wesley – President, Wesley Associates

2009 highlights:

Before we go to our yearly achievements, I would like to acknowledge all of our valued clients who were integral to our 2009 success including: Nestlé USA (since 1995), PepsiCo (Quaker-Tropicana-Gatorade) (since 1997), Tree Top (since 1998), Seneca Foods (2003), Diamond Foods, Inc. (2003), Birds Eye Foods (2007) and Knouse Foods (2008); without the support we received from your teams, these accomplishments would not have been possible! We are in discussions with a few manufacturers in the CPG industry who may also be joining our clientele in the coming months. We are very thankful that we were able to realize these achievements, when collectively you represent ~$9 Billion Domestic dollars of your industry!

Throughout the year, we have captured many overbilling errors and supply chain issues, both large and small, but the following are at the top of our list of achievements for 2009:

• Reporting an average payback ratio of 6:1 / 8:1 across all of our clients!

• Overall collection rate of 50% (Includes repayments still being actively pursued). Total is $113K, including a small portion of the Supply chain repayments cited above.

• Average of 72% for your collective National Policy compliance levels. In 2008, we reported 79% and the drop is mostly due to a major manufacturer acquiring new product lines with a different policy structure, as well as Supervalu/Albertsons shifting over to Supervalu’s higher fee structure.

• Average Rec. Center handling fees across all active clients is $0.303/item ($0.296 in ’08).

• Average Net Audit variance vs. Policy of only 2.5% (vs. 1.7% in ’08) across all client claims processed.

• Conducted 9 reclamation center inspections for multiple customers including two West Coast centers for retailers such as Safeway, Supervalu, Wal Mart, Winco and Raleys. We send in teams of two with hand-held scanners, allowing us to submit data at an extremely detailed level (customer, UPC, count and damage reasoning, which is rolled up into a spreadsheet for easy reference.) We retrieve samples of damage and non-damage and ship back to our clients along with a variety of informative photos/analysis for them to share with their Packaging and QA departments.

• Initiated charge backs for supply chain and promotional abuses where the retailers could have worked with the manufacturer to avoid these practices. A portion of these are detailed as follows:

  • National Wholesaler: Approx $35K slotting discounts provided to our client after research proved that product was sold on an “in-out” basis and should not have been returned through reclamation.

  • Regional Wholesaler: Approx $6.3K in warehouse damage was claimed as spoils. This was investigated and repaid.

  • Regional Retailer: Approx $11K repaid to our client after Wesley Associates identified a huge spike in one product coming back through reclamation.

  • Regional Wholesaler: Approx $65.5K for one client, and $8K for another client still being pursued due to a customer’s acquisition that resulted in poor warehouse strategy/losses that the customer is trying to push onto our clients.

  • Regional Retailer: Approx $2.6K repaid to our client after Wesley Associates identified a product sold as “final sale” coming back through reclamation.

• In 2009, our data mining capabilities for brands covered under Adjustable Rate programs exposed > $1.5 Million in excess deductions over the ARP for our client teams to challenge.

• Our “One Bucket” premium service, which tallies all possible customer overbillings as well as spoils rates into a single document can be used both ‘off-line’ as a reference tool or incorporated into a weekly or monthly feed. Ideally, this concept was developed as a way to balance excessive spoils practices with Trade Spend (depleting $s for offenders, rewarding performers), but in speaking with some of you, there are unique challenges that can make this difficult to automate. However, it can still be used as in-house performance guide to open dialogue with your more challenging customers.

• Ongoing ‘Donations Program’ to ensure all products with this disposition are reaching Food Banks. We have been working on developing our relationship with Second Harvest, as the depletion in food bank receipts is also one of our concerns (as it relates to some of your product dispositions).