100% customer satisfaction.
That’s the figurative white whale Guittard Chocolate Company has been pursuing. But multiple reporting structures, an aging data warehouse, and disparate processing points—from cacao farmers to production facilities and warehouses to shipping—was getting in the way of ensuring inventory consistently met demand.
All because data couldn’t be quickly and easily accessed where and when it was needed.
Limited Access to Reports and Order Details Kept the Sales Team in the Dark
Case in point: What if a member of the sales team is with a customer and wants to check the status of an order? To find out where it is, she:
1. Contacts a member of the company’s customer service team to request status information.
2. The customer service representative initiates a search via SAP Crystal Reports or Hubble Reporting (both on different platforms).
3. No sooner than a day after the initial request, the customer service representative can send the sales rep the results of the report in a standard, tabular format.
Even with information pulled from their Oracle enterprise system, different reporting structures could mean different—even conflicting—information that was difficult and time-consuming to consolidate and interpret. “It’s not really real time,” admitted Accounting Operations Manager Judy Bezue.
And what can you do with “stale” data you can’t really trust?
CIO Sees Enhanced Analytical Possibilities with Incorta
What if you could instantly access the necessary information from the field—drill down even to the item-level details and give your customer a status report in real time? And using a tablet!
Guittard CIO Daniel Lim couldn’t resist the opportunity. When he saw an Incorta demonstration, he recognized how the company could benefit from the platform’s superior technology, faster data access, and enhanced analytical capabilities. But the key selling point was mobility for the sales force, who needed real-time visibility to orders and the supply chain.
“The first thing that struck me was the speed in which they’re able to access the information. I’ve been working in the industry for a long time, and I could tell you the amount of data that’s out there, it takes time to process,” he said. “We can drill down the orders to see the detail information, as well as taking a look at the overall supply chain and where the inventories are at.”
And deployment was a breeze. “We were done in about 45 days. It’s pretty much plug and play,” Lim said. Training took only a couple hours for the sales team and they were “off and running,” he marveled.
Bezue was equally impressed and credited the Incorta team’s invaluable support. “This must be the most successful deployment that we have experienced,” she said.
Supply chain management is more efficient and effective than ever before with an enhanced ability to view customer details, order status, and even drill down to item-level inventories at individual warehouses. “We’re able to see the entire picture of the order,” Bezue said.
What’s Next at Guittard?
With the success of initial implementation still fresh, next up for conversion is finance and accounting, followed by production, warehouse, and shipping with the goal to move off their antiquated data warehouse within 12 months.
And then what?
“People are still digesting all the information that we have that we didn’t have before,” Bezue reflected. “It’s going to open a lot more opportunities for the company—and also a lot more internal opportunities to improve our processing.”
Now that users can view data in graphs or pie charts and make last-minute changes to how information is filtered and presented, they can begin exploring even more possibilities. This kind of flexibility means company leadership can make more informed, measurable business decisions for future growth to ensure what Bezue calls “100% customer satisfaction.”
Read the full case study to find out why Guittard chose Incorta over other solutions for real-time visibility to track inventory and overall supply chain status.