A fresh approach to transforming a leading berry brand's supply chain

A household name in the US, the berry seller was aiming to grow its business in Europe and China and double its revenue over five years. But first, it needed to address internal hurdles like poor supply forecasting, inefficient harvest orders, manual claims processing, and lack of traceability.

It sought to delight its primary partners across its supply chain – including berry growers, retailers, and consumers – by delivering high-quality fresh berries within eight days from harvest to table. Adhering to this timeline was essential because the company cools rather than freezes its non-GMO berries.

In the past, the company interacted manually with more than 3,000 of its berry growers to forecast supply and process harvest orders. But the lack of visibility and inadequate planning led to poor pipelines and high rejection rates. To add to the complexity of the operation, the company grows berries in more than 20 countries and sells in more than 45, supported by over 150 warehouses worldwide.

These challenges impacted operational efficiency, customer satisfaction, and revenue growth. The company knew that without modernization, it would continue to miss opportunities with big wholesale customers, and its relationships with growers would suffer.

The company's CIO engaged Genpact as a digital anchor to transform its supply chain, reimagining ways of working and engaging with berry growers, retailers, and consumers.

The company partnered with Genpact on a comprehensive digital transformation program to improve supply chain efficiency, customer experience, and regulatory compliance.

Genpact worked with the brand's team to understand the root causes of its challenges. We then implemented multiple cloud-based solutions to optimize various supply chain processes:

• We developed a persona-based, multilingual mobile portal for growers to enable short-term supply forecasts and modify harvest orders. We then used process analytics to assess forecast accuracy and order change metrics. The portal also helps the company determine which category and batch of berries are most often rejected and helps carry out transaction settlements.
  The company now uses the platform to engage with over 3,000 growers across three continents
• We implemented a Salesforce service cloud to digitize retailers' claims and cut the time they spend on tedious manual claims. From registering a complaint to closing a claim, the workflow is now automated end to end. And retailers can use their self-serve portal to review claimant requests, track claims, and ask for support.
  With this solution in place, when a consignment or a portion of it doesn't meet the standards of a retailer, it can be rerouted within 45 minutes to another location where it can be used in the food processing industry for jams, jellies, or other products or sent to local vendors
• Genpact also created a new barcode-based tracking system that includes granular information like grower name, chemical composition, and warehouse location. It offers three key benefits:
  • Improves R&D capabilities with connected data
  • Offers end-to-end transparency
  • Meets evolving regulatory compliance requirements

  In the future, the client plans to use the barcode system to uncover insights on shelf positioning and resell turnaround time

• The assessment and discovery workshop on the core sales and operations planning (S&OP) processes capabilities revealed critical insights and led to implementing an integrated business planning solution built on Anaplan, an industry-leading connected planning platform provider.
  By integrating demand, supply, finance, and S&OP into a unified platform, the company enabled the shift from supply-driven to demand-driven planning. This transformation extends planning horizons from five years to day one, enabling more strategic and responsive business operations

The berry brand chose AWS as its sole cloud hosting platform for all its data and digital projects. We conceptualized and built the architecture for the AWS data lake. Using AWS for this offered several advantages:

• Data integration: Brings together data from different sources, including growers, retailers, supply chain partners, and internal systems, to provide a unified view of the company's supply chain operations
• Data processing: Processes and transforms raw data into actionable insights using AWS services
• Analytics and reporting: Facilitates advanced analytics, predictive modeling, and real-time reporting to improve supply chain processes and the customer experience
• Scalability and flexibility: Offers scalability to handle large volumes of data and flexibility to accommodate evolving business needs and new data sources

The AWS platform has played an instrumental role in the company's global scaling strategy, enabling it to double its revenue and work toward its ambitious financial target. With AWS services like AWS Lambda, AWS Redshift, and AWS Relational Database Service (RDS), it was able to harness the power, flexibility, and security of the cloud, further driving its transformation efforts.

The partnership with Genpact significantly improved the company's supply chain transparency, regulatory compliance, customer experience, and operational efficiency, contributing to its growth story – the brand grew 250% in 5 years and generated $6 billion in annual revenues.

The digital transformation delivered the following concrete outcomes:

• Elevated customer and partner experiences with seamless digital connections
• $10 million saved with improved claims processing
• Waste avoidance of up to $500 million
• 20% increase in operational efficiency
• 30% reduction in peripheral costs

Most importantly, by digitizing its supply chain, the berry brand can future-proof its operations and continue to delight its partners and end consumers alike.