Customer satisfaction is imperative to ensuring business success for Bodycare Group, which looks to the key operational areas involved in service delivery
Customer satisfaction is imperative to ensuring business success for Bodycare Group, which looks to the key operational areas involved in service delivery.
Toiletry and cosmetic manufacturer Bodycare Group operates with a single vision: “To become the leading private label and contract manufacturing business in toiletries and cosmetics in Europe by focusing single-mindedly on delivering 100 per cent customer satisfaction to all our customers.”
A bold vision, some may say. But perhaps the company’s position as one of Europe’s leading personal care product manufacturers would suggest that it is living up to its motto. Bodycare Group, which is comprised of Bodycare Cosmara in Holland, Bodycare Kozmetikai in Hungary and Bodycare Toiletries in the UK, specialises in both research and development and manufacturing. And its focus continues to be placed firmly on its customers, which include some of the world’s leading retailers, pharmacy chains and brands.
The key to this customer satisfaction is in providing them with a sustainable competitive advantage – offering them rapid response times; effective communication; successful, innovative and quality products that are delivered on time and at the right price.
Through Bodycare’s operational and supply chain platform, the company’s overriding aim is process improvement, whether this be through improving current processes or introducing new ones.
The implementation of a global IT platform, for example, is expected to allow the company to better its global stock forecasting and control, which will improve stock turn within a global product portfolio but without compromising product availability.
A new NPD process has also evolved, improving product delivery times and adherence to budgets through a close management and approvals system.
Supply chain is a key area of focus for the firm and, indeed, a key influence in achieving operational success. Greater control and management of the total supply chain brings suppliers into a closer working relationship, driving innovation and adding an element of pro-activity into the delivery of promises to the customer. Global benchmarking is also linked with delivery of competitive advantage in line with the KPIs of the wider group, while ensuring best standards for operational efficiency and that the global supply chain platform remains market-leading.
The Bodycare Toiletries site located in Preston is testament to the positive effects of this process improvement. This facility has benefited from significant restructuring and investment of late, the focus of which is to enable the facility to increase volume of manufacture, while keeping costs low and continuing to maximise on quality.
And with manufacturers increasingly off-shoring their production to low cost bases such as China, this was undoubtedly money well spent. The site is now state-of-the-art, and operates by way of cell manufacturing. Production at the UK division of Bodycare is at an all time high, and with levels increasing by a massive 40 per cent in 2006, it would seem the customer-first strategy is a winning one.
