National Food Distributor
Setting the Table for an Improved Digital Experience
What if... we could lead a platform assessment and provide a roadmap to improved order promising, management and fulfillment?
Our client is the largest food industry redistributor in North America, carrying 125,000 products from more than 1,000 food industry manufacturers. Through its affiliate, the company distributes food service, convenience, retail, and vending products to distributors in all 50 states and more than 55 countries.
Order Promises Weren’t Being Kept
Our client was using outdated technologies that negatively impacted accurate customer order processing, management, and fulfillment. The legacy systems were manual and lacked automation capabilities such as order-promising allocation, inventory forecasting, and visibility into orders. The company wanted to improve the customer experience by fulfilling orders with the right quantity delivered at the right time.
We worked closely with our client to define a best-in-class industry-focused order management solution and strategy to implement it.
Reimagining a More Efficient Customer Experience
Our management consulting experts began by designing a platform selection assessment and then led a series of workshops and planning sessions with key stakeholders and leadership to understand the client’s unique needs, goals, and requirements. We used the results to design a phased, future-state order-promising and network optimization roadmap focused on industry best practices and automation.
Next, our client had a choice to make: build this capability or purchase it from a vendor. Concerned that it would be too costly and time-consuming to develop its own software solution, the company asked us to lead a vendor evaluation process.
Choosing the Right Platform for the Job
The vendor marketplace is a crowded and confusing space. Our experienced team got to work using our proprietary platform selection process, our extensive catalog of requirements, and established research on enterprise vendors to help the client narrow, evaluate, and select a platform.
The vendors we chose to evaluate were all deemed to have best-in-class offerings that could help our client achieve its goals. Next, we created a detailed list of questions and provided it to prospective vendors. Based on their responses, we invited select vendors to conduct a demonstration. We scored them, and the top two were invited for a final interview, after which we helped our client make its final selection.
Our deep and demonstrated experience in helping our clients select the best platform – whether it's commerce, CMS, AI, data, or others – made us the perfect partner to help our client meet its goals and drive its business forward.
Results
Delivering on Orders With Effective Inventory Management
Looking ahead, we will help our client implement its order management system and enhance its artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning capabilities.
Supported by a vendor with best-in-class capabilities, they will upgrade its order-promising fulfillment activities as well as its ability to provide customers with improved inventory management, refined replenishment processes, and improved customer service.
Our deep and demonstrated experience in helping our clients select the best platform – whether it's commerce, CMS, AI, data, or others – made us the perfect partner to help our client meet its goals and drive its business forward.
