#Japan #Tokyo #KPI #StoreRecord #Bizgem

Bizgem Launches Innovative Budget Creation Tool for Retailers

Bizgem, a Tokyo-based company, has made a significant advancement in retail management by releasing a new function called "Easy Budget Creation" within its comprehensive management SaaS, StoreRecord. This innovative feature enables retailers to easily compile monthly budgets by simply entering key performance indicators (KPIs) such as sales, total profit, orders, purchasing, and inventory levels.

With this tool, even personnel with limited experience can create consistent budgets in a short time, focusing on critical KPIs like turnover rates to mitigate risks of overstocking or excessive purchases. This development aims to address the growing demand for precise budgeting processes among small and medium-sized retail businesses.

Background: The Need for Accurate Budgeting in Retail

The budgeting process is pivotal in retail as procurement decisions directly impact sales and inventory levels. An overly conservative approach could hinder sales, while excessive optimism might lead to an increased accumulation of inventory, consequently straining cash flows. Historically, crafting accurate budgets requires access to extensive historical data on sales, costs, procurement, and inventory. For companies lacking experienced leadership, this task can become muddled and inefficient, leading to reliance on manual and inconsistent methods.

With the introduction of the Easy Budget Creation feature, Bizgem is committed to helping retailers streamline this process, thereby standardizing and minimizing effort in budget creation.

Key Features of the Easy Budget Creation Tool

The Easy Budget Creation function allows users to input their procurement costs, average discount rates, sales figures, and turnover rates by referencing previous year’s achievements and forecasts. This simple input leads to the generation of an interconnected annual and monthly budget encompassing sales, total profit, orders, procurement, and inventory.

Example KPI Input Screen

Monthly Budget Creation Screen

Especially for less experienced merchandise directors (MDs), deciding how much to procure against sales goals can be daunting, often leading them to overestimate required orders. By adopting turnover rates as KPIs, they can avoid making rash purchasing decisions, resulting in better-structured budget plans. Moreover, the monthly budget is created based on prior year data, allowing for a more seasonally adjusted budgeting approach.

Expected Benefits

The launch of the Easy Budget Creation tool aims to:

• - Reduce dependency on individual expertise in budget creation, establishing a standardized process within organizations.
• - Mitigate issues of over-purchasing and excess inventory, improving financial efficiency.
• - Offer a budget that is explainable based on KPIs, narrowing the gap between decision-making and on-ground operations.

Future Developments

Currently, Bizgem has rolled out the Easy Budget Creation feature, targeting the procurement or MD aspect of budget formulation. Moving forward, they plan to implement similar functionality for the sales aspect (considering factors like brand and store unit) to encompass margin profits into the budgeting process. This development aims to enable comprehensive design of annual sales, total profit, selling, general, and administrative expenses in one seamless workflow.

For inquiries and applications, visit StoreRecord's official service page.

Company Overview

Company Name: Bizgem Inc.
Founded: December 2022
CEO: Kotaro Higuchi
Location: 2-3-11 Koraku, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 112-0004, Japan
Contact: [email protected]

CEO Profile: Kotaro Higuchi

Kotaro Higuchi graduated from Keio University and joined Itochu Corporation in 2008. After leaving in 2011, he co-founded Unistyle Co., a web media platform for job seekers, serving as COO. In 2016, he sold all shares of the company to a human resources venture. He later joined Open and Natural Corp. in January 2019, directing a D2C brand for children's clothing, successfully scaling revenue and profits before selling to the Adastria Group in 2022. Subsequently, he founded Bizgem in December 2022 and took the role of CEO.