Start-up logistics at a professional level

Start-ups and scale-ups need one thing above all else before enter­ing the mar­ket: sta­bil­i­ty. Not only in the prod­uct itself, but also in dis­tri­b­u­tion and logis­tics. A launch usu­al­ly only has one chance — and SOLTIC sup­ports young entre­pre­neurs as an oper­a­tions and logis­tics expert. Espe­cial­ly in the start-up phase, they are con­front­ed with a vari­ety of dif­fer­ent issues. We take on the sup­ply chain issues and thus relieve the pres­sure on lim­it­ed resources. This gives founders the space to focus on oth­er impor­tant issues. Our com­mon goal is a suc­cess­ful go-to-mar­ket — as good as nec­es­sary, as fast as pos­si­ble, with lean ini­tial invest­ments but also with fore­sight.

Processes are crucial

Once a new busi­ness mod­el goes live, it’s not just the actu­al prod­uct or dis­tri­b­u­tion that counts. The deci­sive fac­tor is whether plants, ware­hous­es, trans­port, data and sys­tems work togeth­er. Whether the pack­ing table is ready on time, the mas­ter data is cor­rect, the stocks are vis­i­ble, the deliv­ery tours are run­ning, the label is print­ing — and whether every­thing can be done twice as fast tomor­row.

A spe­cial focus on oper­a­tional and logis­ti­cal process­es is there­fore cru­cial when prepar­ing for mar­ket entry. With SOLTIC’s exper­tise, start-ups can design effi­cient and future-ori­ent­ed logis­tics and process­es right from the start.

The fol­low­ing pro­ce­dure has proved suc­cess­ful for us:

1. the starting point: from the envisaged business model to a supply chain view

The start­ing point for any func­tion­ing busi­ness is the trans­la­tion of the busi­ness mod­el into spe­cif­ic require­ments for mate­ri­als, ser­vices and space. Clear process­es are required from order­ing to order pro­cess­ing and invoic­ing.

When it comes to phys­i­cal prod­ucts, it is not enough to con­sid­er the pro­duc­tion process alone. Reli­able imple­men­ta­tion requires an end-to-end view, start­ing with the tar­get­ed vol­umes, the pro­cure­ment of raw mate­ri­als, pre­lim­i­nary prod­ucts, aux­il­iary and pack­ag­ing mate­ri­als through to trans­port and stor­age capac­i­ties. This also includes clear sup­pli­er rela­tion­ships, reli­able dis­tri­b­u­tion chan­nels and defined returns process­es.

2. gap analysis: Which aspects have not yet been reliably resolved for a successful market entry?

Many ques­tions arise when start­ing up or expand­ing a busi­ness: How do I open up new mar­kets? How can I actu­al­ly guar­an­tee my per­for­mance promise?

How­ev­er, oth­er details are often cru­cial: suf­fi­cient space, func­tion­ing mate­r­i­al flows, sen­si­ble staffing ratios and reli­able coop­er­a­tion with logis­tics and trans­port ser­vice providers. In order to intro­duce the busi­ness mod­el effi­cient­ly, it is impor­tant to clear­ly iden­ti­fy exist­ing ambi­gu­i­ties and gaps.

3. focussing: Closing success-critical gaps is crucial.

Iden­ti­fy­ing which gaps need to be closed is cru­cial to the company’s suc­cess. The chal­lenge is to make the effort in the right areas and at the same time have the courage not to want to con­front all poten­tial risks and unpre­dictabil­i­ties of the busi­ness before the start. Focus­ing on the essen­tial build­ing blocks of the future process not only reduces the time to mar­ket, but also con­tributes to lean invest­ments.

The pri­ori­tised top­ics must be processed in a struc­tured man­ner with clear objec­tives and respon­si­bil­i­ties. The finan­cial and organ­i­sa­tion­al frame­work must also be con­tin­u­ous­ly com­pared with the busi­ness plan.

4. Roadmapping: initial guideline for future development

What is good enough for the start may no longer be suf­fi­cient after a short time. Whether ERP, order­ing plat­forms, invoice pro­cess­ing or ware­house lay­out — solu­tions must be scal­able and also enable busi­ness devel­op­ments that devi­ate from the busi­ness plan.

Cen­tral errors in the infor­ma­tion flows, espe­cial­ly in the ERP, can only be cor­rect­ed after com­mis­sion­ing at great expense and usu­al­ly dis­rupt ongo­ing oper­a­tions. Pro­duc­tion, logis­tics and trans­port process­es that are not mod­u­lar or grow with the com­pa­ny rep­re­sent a crit­i­cal oper­a­tional risk.

Automa­tion and capac­i­ty reserves can­not be the first step for a young com­pa­ny. But you will need them when it is up and run­ning. Far-sight­ed­ness in the ini­tial set­up sets the course for the sus­tain­able devel­op­ment of the com­pa­ny beyond the ini­tial real­i­sa­tion of the idea.

5. targeted readiness checks: for a reliable go-live date and successful market development

Con­tracts, mar­ket­ing mea­sures and per­son­nel — the go-live date quick­ly becomes an «all-or-noth­ing» game and har­bours a lot of uncer­tain­ty, espe­cial­ly for founders. The focus must there­fore always be on the intend­ed goal and mile­stones must be con­tin­u­ous­ly tracked.

It is a tough road to achiev­ing ser­vice sta­bil­i­ty and data/system sta­bil­i­ty. It is impor­tant to keep an eye on the crit­i­cal path, as this is usu­al­ly not in the sub­se­quent core process.

Operations and logistics: start-ups get through the crucial launch phase safely with SOLTIC

Whether start­ing up or expand­ing a busi­ness, these weeks and months are an excit­ing and chal­leng­ing time for all entre­pre­neurs. Start-up logis­tics and oper­a­tional process­es in par­tic­u­lar har­bour great poten­tial, but also major risks. At SOLTIC, we act as an oper­a­tions and logis­tics accel­er­a­tor that opti­mis­es the imple­men­ta­tion of your busi­ness mod­el. Our ser­vices:

• Sup­ply chain analy­ses incl. make-or-buy and loca­tion selec­tion
• Logis­tics con­cepts, Transport/distribution con­cepts
• Process design incl. train­ing and imple­men­ta­tion sup­port
• Pro­duc­tion opti­mi­sa­tion
• Inte­gra­tion of exter­nal logis­tics ser­vice providers
• IT con­cepts (ERP, ware­house man­age­ment if nec­es­sary, con­nec­tion to shop/checkout sys­tems, etc.)
• Operational/logistics plan­ning, also for ten­ant improve­ments; organ­i­sa­tion of con­ver­sions includ­ing build­ing appli­ca­tions
• Move-in/­move-out organ­i­sa­tion
• Prof­itabil­i­ty analy­ses with cost clar­i­ty at an ear­ly stage

Our promise: «Good enough to try»

SOLTIC is your part­ner with a real under­stand­ing of start-up real­i­ty — prag­mat­ic, flex­i­ble and cost-sen­si­tive. Our goal is a start-up-com­pat­i­ble oper­at­ing ver­sion «Logis­tics 1.0»: reli­able in start-up day-to-day busi­ness, lean in terms of invest­ment and at the same time expand­able for the next steps in the company’s devel­op­ment. It’s not about achiev­ing per­fec­tion in many years, but about achiev­ing «good enough to try» in just a few weeks to months — with a roadmap on how to turn an idea into sta­ble process­es. And sta­ble process­es become scal­able process­es — far-sight­ed and focussed at the same time.

Ready to go? Let’s talk about it!