Unlocking success: How analytics can transform beverage distribution

A beverage distribution business can be challenging to understand and manage without a strong reporting platform, given the significant volume of transactions, customers and products to manage. Having clear insight into industry analytics can improve processes, decision making and overall profitability.

Analytics and how to deploy

There are several ERP systems a beverage distributor or wholesaler might use as a source system to track transactional data such as sales activity or inventory movements. Some of the more common systems include VIP, Encompass and Oracle Netsuite.

Once this data is collected, we recommend pushing the data to a data warehouse or database where you can stage that information to cut down on performance issues and unintended consequences that may come with pulling data directly from a source system.

After the data is staged in a data warehouse, you can then utilize visualization tools like Tableau and Power BI to provide the end user with an interface with interactive dashboards, data exports and pre-prepared reporting on demand.

Our role as advisor

Baker Tilly’s goal when working with a beverage distributor or wholesaler in the analytics deployment process is to give the client everything they need to be successful. The first step to making this happen is collaboration – having a good relationship with a trusted advisor is important.

We also strive as advisors to share industry perspectives from working with similar clients as a part of our projects to help clients get up to speed faster than if they were pursuing this on their own. In addition to providing that insight, we can provide process and project management to manage uncertainty and help ensure a client’s deployment is well thought out, can be delivered on time and is within budget.

Rather than pushing standard templates or products without considering a unique business’s needs, the Baker Tilly approach is to sit down with the leadership team and understand the company at the outset to determine where the most value can be created for the client’s individual situation utilizing our expert’s technical expertise across all disciplines from finance to accounting to operations to sales.

The data first mentality

company and their current data streams at the outset of the project to set realistic expectations about what can be done in a given time frame. For some companies, this means immediate value through in-depth, insightful reporting where we can hit the ground running. For others, this means a multi-phase journey where we first seek to improve business processes, set up a new system and add resources to manage data.

The data first mentality starts with identifying data sources a client uses, which will be needed in order to complete the analytics discovery. We sit down with the team members supporting the project to capture all the relevant categories and attributes so the data can be sliced and diced in different ways. Then we move on to building out basic data sets that will be flexible and usable for a wide range of subject matter areas and over time will continue to expand as business becomes more complicated.

Getting started with analytics

To begin your company’s analytics journey, a good place to start is by transferring any existing reports you may have based in Excel or PowerPoint into a framework that allows more flexibility and creates efficiency in reports once built. This will make the reports evergreen and always available with the most up to date data.

As you work to build your process out, it’s always important to keep your audience in mind and gather feedback from users on what they need and don’t need and what they have trouble with when accessing data. Prototype development can be helpful in demonstrating the art of the possible with your own data. This way, you can get something in front of users that is functional and get their feedback to create a loop of information, allowing you to work towards the perfect solution over time. Finally, many of these tools allow you to view usage activities. This can be valuable to monitor and gain insight into what’s important to your team members, what’s getting the most value and what needs to be enhanced.

Whether you’re looking to start your analytics journey or enhance the one you already have in place, Baker Tilly is here to help you every step of the way with our extensive experience in the beverage distribution industry.

Watch our demo of examples of implementation done with other clients: