[eGuide] Optimizing your food supply chain with data

Right product. Right place. Right time. In the food industry, delivering in full and on time helps ensure food safety and product freshness — not to mention high customer satisfaction and increased profits — which is why knowing the ins and outs of your supply chain is crucial.

NB! This is an excerpt from our new eGuide 'Optimizing your food supply chain with data: Keeping your business a cut above the rest'.

But there can be several challenges in the industry when it comes to supply chain. Volume is high, margins are razor thin, competition has increased, food safety regulations are ever more stringent, and information comes from many different sources.

So how do you identify trends, respond to them proactively, make fast business decisions, improve margins — and ultimately optimize your supply chain? Data insights and analytics.

Food industry data

Data analytics is becoming increasingly prominent in the food industry. This is because both merchant and operations teams need improved visibility and coordination throughout the supply chain to optimize their operations. But data by itself doesn’t solve problems; the insights that come from analyzing it does.

Specifically, when it comes to supply chain, businesses that leverage data can better control operational costs by increasing or reducing product, depending on demand. Data also tells you what’s happening in your marketplace, letting you analyze the past and present, as well as predict future trends. Having real-time, meaningful information at your fingertips leads to increased revenue and better management of expenses and ultimately a better bottom line.

Read on to find out how data analytics can optimize your food and beverage business’ supply chain.

1. Seeing the big picture

When you’re able to combine several pieces of information such as broker, supplier, customer and distributor data, viewing it in one place helps provide a clean line of sight into what’s happening across your organization.

How does this help you?

By seeing the big picture of your business, you’re able to spot trends, new possibilities or areas of improvement, and maybe see some big issues and take action before they occur.

For instance, sales teams can see what opportunities exist by customer, products that are prevalent by channel and what price sensitivity looks like for their stakeholders. This in turn can inform the product quantities in your supply chain, and the most ideal location to have them.

This was an excerpt from our new eBook 'Optimizing your food supply chain with data: Keeping your business a cut above the rest'. To download your copy of the eBook, click here, or on the button below.