Because the knowledge of their internal systems and data was limited to only a few people, there were also concerns about business continuity and siloing.
With White Cup BI, E.B. Horsman & Son has real-time access to the business intelligence it needs to make the best inventory decisions and strengthen supplier relationships.
Scorecards Strengthen Vendor Relationships
E.B. Horsman & Son has used Epicor P21 as its ERP for years, but it was difficult to get the insights they needed, VP of Purchasing & Inventory Todd Taverner said.
With White Cup BI, the company is able to run daily, weekly, monthly reports on its core products at will, something they never would have been able to do before.
Vendor scorecards make it easy to show suppliers the costs of goods sold and other relevant data — in some cases, data the suppliers aren’t able to access within their own organization.
“It has boosted our credibility and opportunity for collaboration,” Taverner said. “We’ve had some vendors actually emulate what we’re doing on the BI side of things.”
Improving Inventory Management and Customer Relationships
White Cup BI is a critical link to managing inventory and customer relationships as well as collaborating with vendors.
Taverner and his team used to look quarterly at the most popular items and adjust inventory based on demand trends. Now they have on-demand product data at their fingertips. The inventory analyst and procurement team look at the data daily. Every buyer has access so they can more accurately forecast demand.
Sales directors and account managers also use customer scorecards to prioritize outreach.
For instance, a sales director can see which customers, supplier and products are most active for a specific customer or whether those purchases are trending up or down.
Accounts payable and accounts receivable can quickly see a customer’s billing history and payment status.
Improving Strategic Objectives
The company’s growth in recent years — adding new employees, growing their technical divisions and expanding the product lines — means they need more information more quickly. The executive dashboard in White Cup BI keeps the team focused on their most important priorities and allows them to measure KPIs.
“One of our objectives is shelf sales growth and maximizing existing inventory,” Taverner said.
“We manage sales growth and maximize existing inventory using White Cup BI reports and see if that’s trending up or down. It gives us necessary data for locations, regions, customers, and account managers.”
Todd Taverner
VP of Purchasing & Inventory
E.B. Horsman
Where business intelligence used to be a labor-intensive hassle, it’s now a key factor in decision-making.
“We use it in most of our strategic planning,” he said. “It’s the tool that allows us to report on progress and make decisions.”
