Supply Chain & Vendor Performance Analytics for Retail: 4-Week PoC

The Challenge

Retail supply chains are only as strong as the data behind them — but for most retailers, that data is fragmented across ERP, warehouse systems, supplier portals, and logistics platforms that were never designed to talk to each other. Buying teams score vendors on gut feel. Planners build replenishment models without accounting for lead time variability. And when a shipment is at risk, distribution centre teams are the last to know.

The cost is real — in stockouts, excess inventory, strained vendor relationships, and hours spent manually stitching together reports that are outdated before they're distributed. The root cause is always the same: there's no unified view of the supply chain.

MAQ Software helps retail organisations get started with or extend their use of Microsoft Azure — building a unified supply chain data platform, layering vendor performance reporting and operational dashboards on top, and enabling intelligent agents that surface risks and anomalies before they become problems.

Key Questions

• Do your buying teams have a consistent, data-driven vendor scorecard — or is performance assessed informally and after the fact?
• How quickly does your team know when an inbound shipment is at risk of missing its delivery window?
• Is lead time variability across your vendor base factored into replenishment models — or are stockouts the first signal something went wrong?
• Can your distribution centre teams join inbound receiving data with purchase order records to diagnose fulfilment failures?

Our Approach

Week 1: Discovery & Data Onboarding

• Interview supply chain, buying, inventory planning, and IT teams to map vendor reporting workflows and data gaps
• Audit existing data sources — purchase orders, warehouse receipts, supplier records, and logistics feeds — for completeness and joinability
• Agree on vendor scorecard KPIs: on-time delivery, fill rate, lead time variance, and quality compliance
• Onboard agreed data sources into a unified data environment to begin modelling

Week 2: Data Modelling & Vendor Scorecard Build

• Build a unified supply chain data model joining purchase order, inbound shipment, warehouse, and supplier master data
• Develop vendor scoring logic at vendor, category, and SKU level
• Surface early scorecard views for buying team validation and KPI refinement

Week 3: Dashboard Development & Scenario Testing

• Build the full Vendor Performance Dashboard — scorecard views, delivery compliance trends, lead time distribution, and at-risk shipment alerts
• Develop Supply Chain Visibility views — inbound pipeline status and fulfilment failure root cause
• Run scenario testing with stakeholders to validate KPI accuracy and refine metric definitions

Week 4: Handover, Roadmap & Readout

• Conduct UAT with business and technical stakeholders
• Deliver prioritised roadmap for full-scale implementation
• Present executive readout with PoC outcomes and recommended next steps

Deliverables

• Vendor performance reporting dashboard on Microsoft Azure
• Supply chain visibility dashboard on Microsoft Azure
• Unified supply chain data model
• Prioritised implementation roadmap on Microsoft Azure
• Executive readout deck

Key Benefits

• Walk away with a working vendor scorecard and supply chain dashboard on your own data
• Give buying teams a consistent, data-driven basis for vendor reviews and negotiations
• Surface at-risk shipments before they become stockouts — shift from reactive to proactive
• Eliminate manual data extracts with automated pipelines that keep dashboards current
• Validate the full solution approach before committing to end-to-end implementation

Who is this for

Business Stakeholders

• Head of Supply Chain & Logistics
• Buying & Procurement Directors
• Inventory & Replenishment Planning Managers
• DC / Distribution Centre Operations Managers

Technical Stakeholders

• Data and Analytics Engineers
• BI Developers and Reporting Leads
• IT Directors / Heads of Data Platform

Why MAQ Software

• Supply chain domain depth — we understand the full data chain from purchase order to warehouse receipt to vendor scorecard
• Pre-built supply chain accelerators — reusable data models, KPI libraries, and reporting templates that compress PoC build time
• PoC-to-production continuity — the same team that delivers your PoC designs and builds your full implementation

Get Started

Contact CustomerSuccess@MAQSoftware.com to schedule your PoC and take the first step toward unified, real-time supply chain and vendor performance intelligence.