Growing food manufacturers have a lot on their plates – changing food safety regulations, big retail competitors and changing customer demands just start the list. But with all these changes affecting even the biggest of brands, it’s interesting to see how smaller companies can keep pace. Entrepreneur Magazine recently reported that the most successful fast growing companies are ones that know more about their customers’ economic expectations than their own. The key is to keep growing ‘value’ to be sustainable.
Enter Dave’s Gourmet – fast growing California-based specialty food manufacturer. Challenges with cost visibility, keeping up with orders and customer insights were what they were facing. They didn’t want to just keep pace – but wanted to provide real value for their customers. Technology was their tool to accomplish this. After implementing enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution, SAP Business One – Dave’s Gourmet saw a boost in sales and profits. They accelerated order flow and shipping time by 35%. At the same time, they reduced inventory while lowering incidence of out of stock items by 15%.
Impressive numbers – but what does all of this really translate into? It means not just saying you want to provide value BUT proving you can deliver on it. Employees are accessing real-time information and reports to understand how products are selling and identify customer buying patterns. Dave’s Gourmet has the ability to now provide a higher quality of service to their customers with this data. They are quickly meeting customer needs, ensuring inventory is in stock when customers need it most. With technology and the right leadership vision, Dave’s Gourmet continues to create new products for changing customer needs and scale their business.
How are you growing ‘value’ to be sustainable in a fast changing market? Click here to read Dave Gourmet’s full story.
