Matching Supply and Demand: Avoiding Overstocks and Shortages in the Dynamic Wine Import Market

Dimensional Insight Impact

Background

Founded in 2004, Vino del Sol has built their reputation as a leading importer of terroir-driven wines that over-deliver in value. Known as “The Argentine Wine Specialist^®,” they also market exceptional wines and sakes from California, Chile, Japan, and New Zealand.

Upon joining Vino del Sol, Purchasing Director, Mara Gonzalez, convinced management to acquire a business intelligence tool from Dimensional Insight. Mara had used Diver Platform (Diver) at a previous company and recognized the need for a decision-support tool at Vino del Sol, one that could support their geographically dispersed workforce. Without an IT department, the cloud-based version of Diver was quickly implemented and rolled out to the company to begin meeting their current and future decision-support needs. Three years after that initial roll-out, Diver is used by almost everyone in the company to monitor, proactively adjust allocations within, and gain insight from the company’s complex supply chain.Vino del Sol has earned its reputation as a leading Argentinean wine importer through passion and dedication to over-delivering on value. Their success has been clearly evident over the past few years as they have doubled in size. In this complex industry, with its 3-tiered structure, weather’s substantial impact, and a myriad of packaging and documentation variables, it is a challenge to match demand and supply on an ongoing basis. Vino del Sol discovered a software solution to support its growth and provide visibility across the business, effectively delivering critical information to its workforce spread throughout the US and Argentina. With this visibility, Vino del Sol has minimized overstocks and shortages and manages their product allocations as close to real-time as possible, in this constantly changing environment.

The challenge

The solution

The results

Clear supply chain visibility

In Purchasing, Diver supports the ever-important decisions regarding which distributor receives what product, how much of it, when it is delivered, and where. Data is integrated from QuickBooks™ and Nielsen® Beverage Data Network (BDN) enabling the constant analysis of product placement decisions and forecasts. Most retail sales data is provided from the distributors via BDN. The remaining data, received in separate reports from distributors who do not have the capacity to format to BDN standards, is easily loaded into Diver using a customized load program.

The result is a complete view of the company’s retail operations combined with shipments, open sales orders, purchase orders, receipts, and shipment goals enabling analysis of critical performance measures such as the Rate of Depletions vs. Sales. The purchasing department gains insight into customer behavior, monitoring whether certain customers are placing direct shipments and if they have placed their orders on time. Working closely with distributors, Purchasing tracks their needs and keeps an eye on the scheduled sales programs. Vino del Sol maintains a constant feedback loop with suppliers to help them anticipate demand; to better plan production and procure the necessary dry goods packaging. Diver is used to coordinate Vino del Sol’s effort to ensure they place their own orders on time and that those orders arrive at their distributors’ warehouses when needed. With Diver, Purchasing gains a timely view of day-to-day activities enabling them to identify trends, maintain a deep understanding of the business, and make better, data-driven decisions.

A daily snapshot of performance

The field sales force uses Diver dashboards to view a daily snapshot of their individual territory then probe further to gain an understanding of the drivers beneath their performance. They look into specific distributors, or items, or brands to see how those elements of the business are performing, across the board and within their territory. The VP of Sales uses Diver to support the standard exchange between his national sales manager and the regional managers. He sees the complete company picture, territory picture, market performance, program evaluation, and more.

The business costs of inaccurate allocation predictions or the inability to anticipate or quickly adjust to market and environmental changes are incurred in the form of overstocks and shortages. Vino del Sol has minimized their overstocks and shortages by gaining a deep understanding of the business across the entire supply chain and distributor market. Diver puts the company’s performance data in the hands of its workforce, supports their projection and analysis processes, and enables Vino del Sol, with a great deal of accuracy and insight, to successfully match supply with demand as they continue their phenomenal growth.

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