ARI trading division aims for expansion

Gavin Lipsith

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The group's new purchasing and logistics operation is looking to increase its portfolio of retail supply contracts in Russia and the CIS

Aer Rianta International (ARI) is hoping to boost its recently established trading division's business with new supply contracts with duty-free retailers in Russia, the CIS and Eastern Europe. The division, which was formed last June, currently supplies ARI's subsidiaries in the region, including Kievrianta at Boryspil airport and Runway Duty Free at Moscow Domodedovo and Vnukovo airports, as well as supplying some product lines to the group's Aerofirst (Moscow Duty Free) venture at Moscow Sheremetyevo airport.

ARI has reported good gains from the consolidation of purchasing and logistics in the region, trading project manager Cormac Griffin told RavenFox.com. The majority of purchasing decisions are made from ARI's headquarters in Shannon, and most product lines are shipped through a logistics and warehousing centre in the Netherlands.

Griffin said: "We had a small scale trading operation before but last June we won approval to develop the business. At the moment we focus on supplying our various subsidiary companies in Russia and the CIS, but a natural area for expansion will be contracts with other retailers throughout the region."

The operation has benefited from improvements made to its computer systems recently, Griffin added. "We had started operating our trading division but were finding it difficult to manage it using manual processes and unsophisticated business management software. The result was a growing backlog of administrative work generated by the business. On top of that we had no single master product file across all of our business units, which was a major source of error."

The company engaged Alpha Landsteinar to build a system based on Microsoft Navision trading software which allows the company to consolidate its product information into a single file and gives up-to-the-minute data on stock levels and demand. The system has now been extended to allow electronic automatic ordering.

Griffin told RavenFox.com: "We were looking to standardise our systems across the group and the new software has allowed us to consolidate product information and enabled better communication between the various business units."