Route Accounting Systems

HighJump Software, a global provider of supply chain management software, announced Wisconsin Distributors and Erie Beer are now using HighJump RouteCenter to power their beer distribution operations. Privately held by common ownership and long-time HighJump Software customers, the Anheuser-Busch InBev wholesalers implemented the HighJump route accounting system (RAS) to manage their growing direct store delivery (DSD) operations. Erie Beer distributes three million cases per year and is based in Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin Distributors distributes six million cases each year and is located in Wisconsin. HighJump RouteCenter manages the distributors’ selling, delivery, inventory and settlement processes.  Additionally, the RAS works in conjunction with the Anheuser-Busch Mobility solution to extend the solution to the store shelf.

Read the full press release.

I have to admit I am not an avid World Cup soccer fan...but I have enjoyed the coverage and subsequent drama unfold with a few of the higher profile upsets and controversial rulings on the field.  The ironic story regarding the English team's history with the "Ghost Goal" certainly caught my attention (England clinched its only World Cup victory in 1966 with a similar dispute goal line marker) as the one disallowed versus Germany, en route to a 4 - 1 German victory.

What I found particularly interesting was reading how Sepp Blatter (FIFA President) first maintained the "human aspect" of the game was key and could not be replaced, only to later change positions and seem open to technological advances to assist the officials.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jun/29/sepp-blatter-goalline-technology

How does this relate to direct store delivery (DSD) companies and their challenges?  It seems that Sepp did some soul searching and came around to the concept of at least considering, if not implementing, technological advances.  So what are some signs for DSD companies to recognize when it is time to move forward with a project that advances their use of technology?  Below I talk about five points that really should trigger at least an investigation into what alternatives exist.

1.  Hinderance or Help?
Your company bought that software (route accounting systems (RAS), mobile sales solutions, or maybe an inventory application) or possibly hardware with the intent of helping your employees get the job done faster and better than ever.  At first things were great and you saw immediate improvement in your daily process, but those days are gone.  Today you are more frequently forced to create work arounds or miss opportunities all together due to limitations in your technology suite rather than it helping you achieve improved results.

2.  Reliability Issues?
How often do you hear your route drivers complaining of having to "re-key" a route due to data loss?  Or perhaps a rushed purchase order has been placed due to an unrealized inventory issue from a batch posting failure?  A better question would be - how many times can you let this happen before you realize there is a problem?  Whether it is hardware or software that is letting you down, when these solutions start to impact your business due to failure it may be time to act.

3.  Falling behind competitors?
When the calibre of your lawn falls behind that of your neighbors there may be some good natured teasing involved, but not much more.  When your ability to deliver goods, invoice accurately or manage your supply chain falls behind your competitor you have a much more serious issue to deal with.  In today's economy DSD providers are having their margins tightened while dealing with increased costs, so this is no time to give your competition a head start!

4.  Increasing Cost of Ownership?
What did your IT staff look like when you first implemented your route accounting system?  How did you roll out sales process changes with your route salesmen?  What budget do you allocate to these activities now?  Upgrades, maintenance, support and enhancements are all costs that hit the bottom line.  If your IT spend continues to grow but your ability to handle new functionality (or possibly even maintain the status quo) hasn't progressed, isn't it time to start asking why?

5.  End of Life?
Perhaps one of the more feared phrases of the IT world, if the above listed points haven't triggered the proverbial "spidey senses" then this one surely will start your temperature to rise.  When Microsoft or IBM delivers the notice that product "X" is getting the End of Life treatment you may be able to stretch your utilization past the date, but if anything goes wrong the costs to support / correct / replace will be substantial.  Better to act quickly and start identifying alternative paths to support your business. 

The list of compelling events for your operations may be considerably different depending on the circumstances in which you exist.  But by reading this, I trust that you are actively monitoring where you stand in your technology's life cycle...and good luck making your decisions!

It’s the point of decision: the consumer is reaching through the convenience store cooler door to grab her chosen brand. What affected her decision? What if you see each DSD technology touch point involved in getting the product to the store, and understand how it affected the consumer’s decision?

HighJump’s new video makes it easy to understand how a modern DSD suite works together, including route accounting system (RAS), mobile presell and delivery, surveys and data collection, load optimization, GPS tracking and more.

 

Related posts: The Real Components of a Direct Store Delivery Software Solution

 

Walmart….I know it is almost universally recognized as a dirty word for the many challenges they create for their DSD suppliers.  However, today I would like to talk about the beneficial changes to operations that have resulted from their ASN initiative.

Let’s first look at how many “traditional” DSD vendors handled their order flow before ASN’s (I am going to state the implied assumption of pre-sold orders rather than peddle sales here, but really ASN is conceptually impossible without pre-sales).

1. Order is received by vendor “X” hours or days in advance of required delivery (the method of entry is for another discussion at a later date) into route accounting software.
2. Order goes through some level of processing to determine how it will be built.  Eg. Products are aggregated with common packages, or order is built specifically for customer (read my previous blog on whether to build by order or not).
3. Pallet(s) are built by the distribution warehouse staff with paper pick tickets / load sheets.  Possibly with, but more likely without checking of pallet content.
4. Driver shows up the following morning and verifies his load content and has to either manually pick additional product to replace short picks / miss-picks, or if they are lucky gets some help from the receiving staff.
5. Driver delivers goods to store where additional invoice/delivery adjustments may be required due to earlier verification issues.

This process obviously has some fairly inefficient steps here, but I think it is safe to say this was generally accepted, and even still is today with many small to medium sized distributors.

The Walmart ASN initiative continues to roll out across North America.  To be compliant DSD suppliers not only have to pick at a rate of near constant perfection, but they also have to submit this information well in advance of the driver showing up at the back door with product.  Meeting these requirements means manual picking processes have to go away and any pick discrepancies must be accounted for AND communicated in advance of delivery.   This means adding a step to update pick quantities and another step to update delivery handhelds have to above process.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist (no offence to the rocket scientists), to figure out the changes required to complete these tasks cost $$.  But let’s look at how these operational changes provide benefit beyond being able to continue to supply Walmart with product.

1. Productivity Metrics:  by using either a handheld or mobile computer solution you should be able to track more data than just updated pick quantities.  Why not select a solution to track picking time to generate productivity numbers?  These metrics could be used for incentive picker compensation or alternative motivation plans.
2. Driver Check Out:  with loads already reflecting the changes to pick quantities driver checkout processes should take far less time, getting them out into the trade faster.
3. Delivery Time Reduction:  similar to point above, with accurate load/invoice information route drivers reduce time required to handle the administration side of mobile sales, and should be able to spend more time actually servicing stops.
4. Risk of Fraud:  unfortunately fraud happens…but with accurate order/invoice numbers the need for invoice adjustment will theoretically go to zero.  While I doubt the zero adjustment goal will be present 100% of time, far fewer invoice adjustments means those that happen need better explanation and can be investigated to confirm legitimacy.
5. Route Reconciliation:  here is yet another spot where accurate orders result in time savings.  The lack of invoice adjustments, and accurate inventory numbers save labor for route drivers and reconciliation clerks alike.
6. Inventory Accuracy:  actual pick quantities rather than relieving inventory based on expected numbers give your operation and sales teams real on hand data to know what needs to be ordered, and what is available to sell.

As you can see there are definite benefits to implementing a process solution where actual picked quantities are efficiently tracked.  To truly reap the benefits of this process though, operations should be applying this supply chain improvement not only to their Walmart ASN accounts but to all (or at least the majority) of their accounts!

Traditional perceived challenges to dealing with Walmart aside, I think this is one area where the supplier integration changes they have created in the DSD supply chain best practices are actually forcing operations to become more efficient!  I hope that you consider some of the points above and how they could help your direct store delivery operations as well.
 

HighJump Software announced Shearer’s Foods Inc. is experiencing improvements across its operations after implementing HighJump Route Administrator and HighJump Route Assistant. The company utilizes the HighJump route accounting, mobile sales and mobile delivery solutions to support 100 direct store delivery routes across Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Shearer’s Foods sought to replace its 30-year-old, antiquated system after it became too costly to maintain. The company searched for a next-generation route accounting system to automate its manual processes and provide visibility into its daily operations. Shearer’s Foods selected HighJump Route Administrator and HighJump Route Assistant for the software’s depth of functionality and ability to meet the company’s key requirements.

Learn more about Shearer's Foods' success with its HighJump route accounting system, mobile sales and mobile delivery solutions.

We have hit another month end and I can’t help but sympathize with those warehouse managers and accountants working in the DSD arena. It seems that in nearly every operation running a legacy route accounting system (RAS) for its inventory solution that I have been involved with, the challenge remains the same, month end. The tasks associated with this event have grown over the years, and mean the same thing to all. In a word…Extra! Whether it is time warehouse staff spend counting and re-counting, or effort spent trying to figure out what report supports your reconciliation trouble shooting requirement, it is this “extra” effort that is tying up resources that could be used elsewhere!

After a month of daily sales / loads transactions (and of course the corresponding adjustments to both) it seems a lot can go wrong in that calculation of expected quantities for your on hand inventory! Rather than leaving this challenge for another day of “extra” at month end, here are some simple (and decidedly low-tech) steps that I have seen some of our HighJump customers use to help remedy this situation.

UPC Scanning: yes I know that your warehouse staff can recite product numbers off the top of their head, but what about that temporary receiver filling in when the regular is out sick? Or perhaps the inventory clerk who missed his morning cup of coffee? This simple act limits the exposure to human error…and it is exactly that human error that can create headaches when trying to figure out why numbers bounce all over the place during the month.

Cycle Counting: a daily count, whether it be of a select few packages of high movers, a scheduled percentage of inventory like 20% of SKU’s per work day (typically by brand/package) or a full scale review of your on hand (as required). No other single act can offer as much valuable information as this assessment. Using this information to identify potential problems and acting to resolve them now, reduces the effort significantly.

Watch the Trend(s): by watching where your inventory numbers are heading you may be able to catch the single events that are distorting your results, or perhaps even identify systemic issues present in your operations. Whether you are looking at day over day, or month to date style data, clues are waiting to be discovered that will help you trigger further investigation! Identifying that sudden spike in variance or worrying baseline trend may be step #1 in saving your company from a costly shrinkage write off in the coming weeks.

Sweat Equity: forgive me for stealing a term from one of those home renovation shows, but HighJump inventory management provides you with all sorts of tools and reports to dig further into inventory variances…the trick is, you have to use them! As a customer I have worked with for years recently said “I want to learn to fish for myself”. This request was a perfect example of wanting to work smarter rather than harder and we spent time after that learning how to dig deeper into data with tools available. Rather than using the same reports that partially satisfy your requirements, and then merging data to investigate, why not ask about alternative tools and techniques? Spending time learning how to troubleshoot your inventory challenges is a valuable investment in yourself and your company.

You can decide to continue with your status quo as your month end rapidly approaches. Or you could try to avoid that phone call from your spouse asking whether they should eat alone while you struggle to reconcile variances generated weeks ago and ask yourself – is there a better way? I certainly think so…
 

I recently received a direct mail marketing piece from a HighJump Software competitor. The mailer included a press release announcing that this company had “enhanced direct store delivery integration” and a one page datasheet which described a direct store delivery value chain as manufacturing + regional warehouse + mobile resources + retail shelf.

 

HighJump Software is the North American market leader for direct store delivery software solutions. If our primary competitor in the warehouse management systems market had encroached on our market position I needed to know. Perhaps they had acquired a route accounting solutions provider or acquired a provider of mobility solutions for mobile selling and delivery at the retail location. I consulted a trusted industry analyst who confirmed my suspicions… this was marketing hype and this company’s approach to direct store delivery still had significant “holes.”

 

Anyone familiar with the value chain of direct store delivery companies knows there are some specific complexities that must be addressed in order to have “comprehensive coverage across the extended supply chain.” Here are some things companies should consider when search for direct store delivery software solutions:

 

Certified Route Accounting Systems

Route Account Systems are unique software systems to manage the complexities of route-based sales and delivery. They typically manage the entire order-to-cash cycle and are geared toward the world where sales, inventory, and business metrics are all tied to a “route.” Although traditional ERP systems can be used for route accounting systems, they typically require customization to deal with complex pricing/promotion, cash settlement, truck inventory, and supplier e-commerce integration. To further understand the complexities in the beverage value chain read It is Hard for Anheuser-Busch to be Procter and Gamble.

 

Mobile Sales and Delivery Applications

Success or failure in a direct store delivery business is determined at the store shelf. Direct store delivery companies have large workforces of mobile sales and delivery professionals who need to be equipped with mobility technology for them to effectively accomplish their objectives. HighJump Software provides a comprehensive suite of mobility products which support industry best practices for order capture, goal-based selling, delivery tracking and cash settlement. For more details on these solutions read about our latest mobility suite product release HighJump Software Enhances Mobility Solutions With New Release of Mobile Route Sales and Delivery Software Suite.

 

Load Optimization

Optimized loading of side bay beverage trucks can be complex. While there are numerous packages for creating optimized load plans of traditional van trailers or flatbed trailers, optimizing for side bay beverage trucks is another animal. Additionally, this business problem becomes even more complex when you have a “peddle” environment (driver selling off truck without pre-sold orders) and driver preferences must be taken into account at the load and pallet level.

 

I think the moral of the story is “don’t believe the hype.” Direct store delivery software solutions are specialized for the unique needs of this industry. Direct store delivery software solutions deal with complexities of supplier integration, cash settlement and truck inventory. A WMS, TMS and retail workforce solution will not meet the needs of most food and beverage distributors in their direct store delivery operations.

Today HighJump announced that our latest route accounting system (RAS) has received certification with Anheuser-Busch InBev for use by their wholesalers. The result of this certification is that HighJump RouteCenter receives the highest level of compliance, Level 1 ISV – Strategic Partner. The news release: HighJump Software Named Strategic Partner by Anheuser-Busch InBev.

 

The role of route accounting systems in Anhueser-Busch InBev’s value chain is critical. In order to fully understand the importance of this software, it is important to contrast the value chain of the large four beverage suppliers from a traditional CPG value chain. Let’s explore the differences …

 

Traditional CPG Value Chain

The traditional CPG value chain is largely vertical. A vertical value chain is one where each component of the chain including source, make, deliver and sell is controlled by the same company – in this case the brand owner. This allows retailers and brand owners to collaborate about every aspect of the product including quality, new product introduction, price, promotions, and electronic commerce. With today’s sophisticated supply chain software it is possible for most CPG companies and retailers to know exactly what was sold (and at what price) at every retail location every day.

 

Additionally, most traditional CPG companies have the following inventory flow: manufacturing/production -> regional distribution center -> retailer’s distribution center -> retailer. In this scenario the retailer is primarily responsible for managing the inventory that is shipped from the manufacturer to the retail distribution center (ordering) and the flow from retail distribution center to store (although there are certainly evolving collaboration techniques to share this responsibility across the manufacture and retailer).

 

Big Beverage Value Chain

The value chain of the big 4 US beverage suppliers (AB InBev, MillerCoors, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola) are more fragmented than the traditional CPG companies. In the case of the beer suppliers, they manage the manufacturing/production process and then resell their beer to independent wholesalers/distributors that distribute and sell to the retail location. In the case of the large soft drink suppliers, they do not even manage the production process but leave make, deliver, and sell to independent bottlers.

 

Additionally, in most situations beer and soft drink products are delivered directly to the retail location and by-pass retail distribution. This approach benefits the retailer because they are not forced to handle and transport beverage products which are significantly heavier than most food products. The beverage companies benefit from the ability to merchandise themselves and manage promotions at a local level.

 

Why Retailer Collaboration is More Challenging in the Beverage Value Chain

Retailer collaboration through e-commerce initiatives is more complex in the beverage value chain. This is because unlike the traditional CPG chain which has full visibility to transactions with the retailer, the big 4 beverage suppliers are reliant on their independent distributors who transact with retailers. AB InBev needs to have the same level of visibility over their independent wholesalers as Proctor and Gamble has over its distribution centers….no easy task.

 

How the Route Accounting System Helps

The route accounting system is the core back office system for independent beverage distributors (think ERP for beverage distributors). Best-of-breed route accounting systems have certified integration back to the large beverage supplier organizations. Through this integration, the large beverage suppliers are able to have transaction visibility throughout their distributed value chain. This collaboration allows product, pricing, and promotional information to flow from the supplier to the independent distributor. It also allows sales transactions to flow from the independent distributor back to the supplier so that the supplier can provide this information to the large (and demanding) retailers. Therefore, it is really the route accounting systems which allow the large beverage supplier organization to provide retailers the e-commerce supply chain collaboration they demand.

Being in the handheld based solution business for quite awhile now, there is this voice in my head that keeps saying that there is more to the whole Smartphone thing than simply changing the device we capture our mobile sales, service and delivery transactions on. The fight for the mobile desk top is still raging on and there is no clear winner in sight. Open architectures that can span the operating systems will have a definite advantage. In the ruggedized space, at least for the near term, Microsoft rules the way. However, that cannot be said for what is being carried in the pockets of executives, sales people and even the man on the street.

Route Accounting and DSD systems are fantastic at collecting data. They collect information about sales, location, inventory, trends, specials, lost sales, movements and the list goes on. Then this little light goes on; what about creating a data push model to the outside world? The new killer app may not be in changing the way we collect the data but what we do with it. Some of this requires software, other parts of it are just implementation.

 

•  IMAGINE: The CEO receives up to the minute sales vs. expected data on his iPhone with drill down data against individual line items or categories that are not meeting the plan.

• IMAGINE: Pre-sending the predicted “Suggested” or “Perfect” order calculated by the Route Accounting System to the customer’s BlackBerry and having them pre-approve or edit the orders and add special instructions.

• IMAGINE: After a driver makes a delivery stop, alerting the merchandiser and the customer AP team that the order is on-sight and is ready for the next step.

• IMAGINE: Your customer can push orders and requirements based on current stock levels from his Android phone to update stock levels and recalculate suggested order levels.

The answer here is that we can completely change the customer interaction paradigm from a push only environment to an interactive environment. The “web” based customer portal is the past already. The new battleground is in the pocket of the businessman. Two years ago, I did about 20% of my email on my phone and I would never surf the web. Today I use my phone and my desktop interchangeably. Our market is changing, the users are much more technically able. This is the most exciting time ever to be involved with handheld technology. There is a revolution underway. It will be a game of leading or dying as the way customers interact with suppliers evolves to a new reality in all facets of business.

 

I suspect, although it wouldn’t be admitted to in mixed company, that the presumption has oft been made that having any sort of route accounting software in place puts that direct store delivery business ahead of most. Quite a stretch, considering the increasing complexity of food and beverage distribution processes and requirements, and the extreme range of RASs out there (think old pick-up vs. shiny new SUV).

Now, that old pick-up was, in its day, the envy of many. It could even drive through some bumpy terrain. But now, although it [usually] starts, and can [almost] reach highway speeds, it’s not too reliable, and you need to visit salvage yards to find replacement parts. Not exactly the chariot you want your precious cargo riding in, and not exactly cost-effective. Not the most inspired metaphor, but not too far off?

So how do you know if you’ve got a route accounting system akin to that old pick-up? 
 

• Your processing times seem to be getting slower and slower. 
• You spend days trying to extract data for reports you need to run your business.
• It’s tough to get applications to work together and you’re spending a lot of time and money making integrations work.
• There’s only one person there who understands the necessary workarounds of your RAS – and he’s retiring next fall. 

No, we haven’t been shadowing you. The fact is: the symptoms you’re experiencing are quite common to DSD businesses running on dated technology. While your system may still work at a basic functional level (the pick-up still starts and runs, remember?), modern technology can provide new features, better access to company performance and smoother integration with other systems. 

You may even be interested in the “full maintenance plan” (to extend the vehicle metaphor painfully further) for a modern route accounting system – otherwise known as an on-demand, or hosted system. This option removes the maintenance headache completely by having your supply chain management software vendor host your system for you. There is no hardware to purchase or maintain and patches and upgrades are done automatically. 

This year may be the best yet for your direct store delivery business – do you have a swift, reliable and easy-to-maintain “vehicle” to get you there?
 

HighJump Software announces the latest release of its market leading mobility solution for mobile sales and mobile delivery. HighJump Mobile Sales Advantage, HighJump Virtual Cooler, and HighJump RouteXpress have been enhanced based on evolving technology and industry needs.

The HighJump mobile suite for direct store delivery (DSD) extends the route accounting system into the field for real-time visibility of sales and customer data. HighJump’s mobile products help integrate selling, marketing and delivery efforts across the organization. The HighJump mobile delivery system combines order processing, delivery, peddle sales, invoice management and comprehensive settlement capabilities to streamline daily delivery activities.

Read the full press release.

HighJump Software announced Sanimax is providing improved service to its customers after implementing the HighJump mobile sales and delivery applications. The company utilizes HighJump Route Administrator, HighJump Route Assistant and Usable GPS to execute its collection routes to reclaim materials such as animal by-products and used cooking oils. Sanimax renews or transforms the collected material at its North American facilities into high-demand goods such as tallow, glycerin, proteins, leather and biofuels.

Click here for the full press release to learn more about how Sanimax is improving its business with mobile delivery and route accounting systems from HighJump Software. 

In the technology world we hear a lot about “best practices.”  This is usually a carefully couched catch phrase that means “we did it our way and you should do it that way.”  This is one of those over abused phrases that needs to be added to everyone’s Board Room Bingo game and never used again.  With that said, there are truly best of breed methods that lead the industry.  However, the application of these methods needs to be highly personalized.  There is more than one way to do things and the term “best” depends on many factors that influence that particular situation.

In software, if there was a best then we wouldn’t need multiple vendors and we certainly wouldn’t need consultants to understand the business and implement solutions that maximize the business benefits to the company.  Solutions need to be highly configurable to adapt to the “best fit” for each and every customer. There are many ways to do that. You can take the workflow modeling process or you can take a flag driven process.  Direct Store Delivery environments are highly dynamic and business processes may need to change on a dime.  Unfortunately, many DSD organizations don’t really have the luxury of IT departments to run their route accounting systems and mobile delivery software. The tools built into the system need to be deployed so that normal business people can change, test and deploy them without the luxury of techie folks.

We hear people talk about “best practices” as a way to combat “highly configurable” as an implementation approach. It sounds so good and it looks great on a PowerPoint slide. After all, it’s the “best.”  Believe me that anyone who is in the business can configure the industry standard methods.  They simply wouldn’t survive in the business if they couldn’t.  Let’s start with that as a given.  The real trick is finding partners and software providers who can reflect your business in the software and help you grow.  Making it a practice is best, not a best practice.

Almost every company spends time and energy on customer focused marketing campaigns and strategies. We go to trade shows, buy advertising and put up great websites. Strangely, we spend almost no time or effort on marketing to our own people so that they carry that message forward to the customer as an enthusiastic advocate for the company. The people who deal with the customers are the best carriers of the corporate banner; a few bad apples spoil the entire basket.

 

As we deploy mobile sales, service and delivery systems for our direct store delivery and route accounting systems customers, it occurred to me that we are putting a device in the hand of everyone who directly serves our customers. We actively tell people about the great multi-media features that are available in these mobile delivery devices. You can show slides or commercials and look at spreadsheets. Why isn’t this device being used to market the value of the company to carrier rather than just the end customer? We track quotas and targets, maybe we could use it to improve and mold the impression our people have of the companies they work for.

 

Nothing sells better than enthusiasm and a belief in what they do. My thinking here is that with so much of our lives being interacted with through web-based and hand-held based technology, we could take a page out the internet book and ensure our own people are surrounded by the messaging they should be bringing to the customers. Everyone is on Twitter and Facebook; we are all used to seeing banner ads and messages all day long. What if we used that type of idea to reinforce the ideas we want carried forward about our own company or products. Many of these adds are contextual; think about how that might work when you sales person is dealing with a specific customer face to face.

 

This might be one of those cases where we are so used to working on one end of a problem that we didn’t know the other end existed. Just a random thought ...

One thing that is common in almost all route accounting systems and direct store delivery systems is that at some point we need to get the order, sales and inventory information back to an ERP or accounting system.  Systems integration has been a problem for real world technology implementations ever since the very first computer system.  As soon as you build something, you will need it to speak to something else. The problem is that the something else was likely built in a different technology that may be nothing like the first system.  So how do you start?

 

The first things we always urge our customers to consider are:

 

1.       Where does the single version of the truth (accurate information) need to reside and when does it need to be up to date?

2.       Where (which system) will generate each type of transaction and do other systems need to know or be updated when that happens?

 

By carefully documenting all of the critical processes in the information chain, the interface requirements become self-evident.  All that remains are the decisions about timing data management.  You would think that over 50 years into the age of computing that there would be a nice onc-size-fits-all integration tool that anyone can plug into and voila you have an interface.  Unfortunately, this toll has yet to emerge at a price point that is reasonable for most common business users.  Integration is still largely a programming or scripting task that has to be done by technical people and/or programmers.

 

Many companies include interface toolkits that allow you to simplify the task. There is no common standard that allows everyone to integrate to a common point.  In a world filled with standards and protocols you would think that some common point integration technology would have emerged.  Until then we are left with creating our own toolsets that allow data manipulation, scripting and error correction.  We will continue to work with the experts from the target system.  However, it seems like the next emerging technology needs to bring us into an age of universal communications.  XML and technologies of this nature were supposed to get us there but it seems to still fall short.  What will the next ten years bring, maybe a new language?

The level of activity in the direct store delivery and route accounting systems market seems to be at an all time high.  People who are not automated are looking at automation, and long time users are now looking at “the next step.”  The interesting bit is that this year has made virtually everyone look at protecting their businesses against business inefficiencies that are amplified by changing economic decisions.  If nothing else, this year has been a wakeup call to many in the food and beverage industry to take care of some of the easy laziness that develops over time and run more efficient route businesses.

 

One of the trends over the last few weeks in this blog has been how to grind more sales out of the existing operation.  This week I don’t have any leading advice or best practices to share but I wanted to talk a bit about the act of measurement itself.  Everyone talks about KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) and metrics.  Everyone has their favorite number that they like to share. One of the things that is often overlooked is the physical mechanism used to capture the metric and whether or not it is a direct result of the activity you are trying to measure or simply an interesting parallel number.  Counting the number of chickens on an egg farm is not a good measure of egg production, it is a good measure of potential producers.  You really need to be looking at the number of eggs per chicken or something along those lines.

 

Direct store delivery does not have a standard that can be referenced.  Cases per mile is only good if everyone runs the same number of miles and has a similar account base.  What is interesting is the change in the measure itself (damn calculus).  Acceleration is the rate in change of speed (the first derivative of speed for math nuts).  We can capture a lot of great static data in the route world that is similar to measuring the speed of a car.  I think we get into some really interesting measures when we start looking at the rate of change in those metrics.  That rate of change gives you a much more applicable metric to apply to all routes because it rules out the geographic specific pieces of the measure.  Now we just have to figure out how to do it …
 

Good things come from speaking with users. Last week we had our annual user convention in Florida. This is fantastic gathering of HighJump customers from around the world and across our many solution sets. I am always humbled by the ways customers use the system in innovative ways. Very often we get to see these little nuggets of brilliance that are being used in the field.

 

Normally I shy away from talking about our products. However, in order to tell the story, I need to give you a couple of tidbits.  In one of our flagship direct store delivery software (DSD), route accounting systems (RAS), called HighJump Route Administrator™, we have a feature called suggested order.  It allows you to create a calculation script that suggests which products to put on the shelf and the proper quantities. One of the possible data points that can be captured and used is the current customer quantity on hand.  If you capture that on every visit you can calculate your sell through rates and inventory turnover. We had always spoken about this as a way to ensure you avoided two situations: Product expiring on the shelf (waste) and running out of product (lost sales).

 

One of our customers explained to us the fortunate unexpected consequence of doing this.  When you set up a new store with your products you make a lot of guesses about the profile of that store and the products that they will sell. You tend to use a lot anecdotal experience and demographic data. However, in the end it is a bit of a best guess. Outside factors that are very hard to account for tend to affect the sales at any individual selling point. The unexpected consequence of measuring the Customer Quantity on Hand at each visit and adjusting the Suggested Build-to levels is that the product mix ends up self adjusting to account for the actual sales profile of that store.  In fact, it does this very quickly. Even if you get it completely wrong at the beginning, it will adjust itself within a few weeks. Using a little bit of smarts, you can also then make some assumptions about new products to put in that location and just as easily test the viability of those new products in that location. If you are really clever, you can also measure the impact on the rest of the product mix by adding or subtracting different lines. Carefully adding and subtracting lines on 6 week interval to drive product excitement has a drastic impact on bottom line profitability.

 

Your DSD data tells you everything you need to know about shelf level execution and the product mix effect of different product availability.  This leads you into food cost planning and profitability. Who knew …

HighJump customers packed into the Introduction to HighJump RouteCenter session Tuesday morning to hear more about HighJump's newest next generation route accounting system. The session turned quickly to an interactive discussion between the group and the presenters, Chris Senden, Senior Account Manager, and Bill Antoszewski, Technical Product Manager. Customers fired off question after question about features and functionality they'd like to implement into their own organizations.

HighJump RouteCenter is HighJump’s newest route accounting system with complete functionality for beer distributors, soft drink bottlers, and wine and spirits distributors. Key functionality in the system includes order management, inventory management, route settlement, pricing, promotions and integration to HighJump Software’s mobile software suite. HighJump Software recently announced the release of HighJump RouteCenter On-Demand, a Software as a Service (SaaS) version of the system.

Senden said that customers love the feature-rich HighJump RouteCenter because of its ease of integration and robust flexibility.

One customer summed it up on his way out of the session with, "Wow."

I’m enjoying my second cup of coffee while learning about HighJump’s product strategy in our second day’s opening session at Innovation 2009. Sitting at my table with me are HighJump customers from the consumer goods, manufacturing and wine and spirits industries. Quite a representation!

HighJump’s Vice President of Product Strategy, Chad Collins, explains that HighJump plans to continue with the expansion of direct store delivery footprint into other geographies (HighJump is already the largest provider of DSD technology in North America), and deepen manufacturing execution and transportation capabilities.

As we get deeper into the presentation, we’re getting live demonstrations of some of HighJump’s most impressive new product offerings, including:
 

• HighJump Performance Advantage – HighJump’s new business intelligence dashboarding solution for supply chain products that provides quick visual representation of key operational data/metrics
   
• HighJump RouteCenter – HighJump’s go-forward route accounting system for the beverage industry has some pretty sophisticated drilldown, search and adaptability capabilities and many customers are already converting from older systems onto this modern platform.
   
• GPS – HighJump’s DSD customers get more than just dots moving around a screen. This new real-time tool is great for any companies operating in a dynamic sales environment and creates staff coaching opptys and helps with fuel consumption – it’s already being used in the rendering and dairy DSD industries
   
• HighJump Supply Chain Advantage 11.0 – our newest release is coming later this year and includes some pretty cool cloud computing and interoperability capabilities. Stay tuned!
   
• Unique upgrade process - HighJump's upgrades stand apart from our competitors in that our customers can choose to include only the workflows they need when they upgrade, and keep existing configurations! See how it works at www.highjump.com/easy_upgrade
   

I'm highly caffeinated and ready to hit my first product session!

It’s good day in Orlando! Today marks the official start of HighJump’s annual user conference, Innovation 2009. Highlights of the morning so far? An excellent breakfast (I think the orange juice is actually fresh-squeezed!) followed by a rousing opening session delivered by HighJump’s President and CEO, Timothy Campbell. A year ago at Innovation 2008 HighJump unveiled a new business vision built on both strategic acquisitions and leveraging current solutions. What a year it’s been! Over the past 12 months HighJump has:

• Added 196 new customers
• Made two strategic acquisitions in the DSD market – in aggregate, HighJump is now the largest provider of direct store delivery (DSD) technology in North America
• Introduced several new supply chain products, including a business intelligence module
• Made available on-demand route accounting system; unveiled plans for more cloud computing

Looks like it’s going to be a great week of networking and learning. Looking forward to some great customer testimonials coming up next from Wisconsin Distributing and Provide Commerce (ProFlowers.com, RedEnvelope, etc.)!