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This telesales and direct sales guide provides an overview of the information you will need
to drive demand for Microsoft Dynamics ERP solutions with customers in food and beverage
manufacturing.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
VERTICAL OVERVIEW
The food and beverage (F&B) manufacturing vertical is a large worldwide benefits, or eco-friendly practices. Food safety threatsfrom tainted
market that includes the development, production, and distribution of non- ingredients, animal and plant diseases, infectious organisms, or
durable consumable goods. The industry is struggling with low profit undeclared allergensare frequent, despite efforts to contain the
margins, increased regulatory pressures, and strengthening customer power. problem. The inability to trace product quickly and recall only those with
Regardless of where they are located or which markets they serve, nearly all the hazard is costly.
food and beverage manufacturers experience similar issues. The need for 3. Market and product line expansionOpportunities abound for
operational productivity despite high workforce turnover is a constant in the companies developing solutions specifically for seniors, children, pets,
industry, to ensure margins even when retail customers prefer to sell their preventive health, beauty or all-natural markets, and growing economies
own private label brands and consumers shop on price. Another constant is such as India and China. Varying labeling requirements and multi channel
that F&B companies do not have direct access to demand data, but rely on retail strategies lead to stock keeping unit (SKU) proliferation. More SKUs
retail and foodservice customers. Beyond those core needs, current makes productivity challenging in every corner of the companyfrom
challenges include: production to packaging to logistics and marketing. Fortunately,
1. Economic cycles and private labelThe 20082009 recession occurred programs to eliminate waste and increase training in the face of
with such speed that few companies could match the changing demand workforce turnover have delivered improved performance.
for lower-cost meals and groceries. Many consumers switched to lower- 4. Partner collaborationAs companies expand into new regions and
cost private label or store brands, giving retailers more influence. markets, explore ways to use new ingredients, replace additives, and
2. Consumer concerns and food safetyConsumers will pay a premium develop custom applications, they are partnering with other companies
for foods and beverages offering safety assurances, health and energy with greater expertise in these areas. This is all in addition to supply chain
Microsoft Dynamics ERP in Food and Beverage Manufacturing
BDMCEOs, VPs of Improving innovation success by developing successful new Are you using an ERP or manufacturing system? Which
Operations, R&D, products, packaging, and/or services and changing internal one? How long have you been using it? Are you willing to
Production, Purchasing, processes to make the business more effective and deliver evaluate new technology at this time?
Sales cost savings. How has the recent economic downturn affected your
Gaining access to accurate market and sales data to analyze business? Has customer demand changed for you? Has your
rapidly changing customer habits and preferences. product mix changed in the last 12 months?
Staying informed about trends and meeting increasingly How much R&D and production do you control in-house,
shortened product life cycles, due to rapidly changing consumer and how much do you subcontract? Can you easily keep
and retailer demand. track of design decisions and development progress?
Identifying and developing products to target increasingly
How do you track costs for new product development. Do
smaller customer segments.
you feel you have a good handle on profitability and the
Producing many more variants for the customer, driving a need
relationship between real costs and pricing for new
for marketing and operations to manage more complicated
products?
product lines.
Increasing focus on health, functional, and lifestyle products, Are customer expectations changing (for example, organic,
responding to more consumer concern for the environment. healthy, environmentally sustainable ingredients and
Considering joint ventures and products to drive innovation. production methods)? How are you tracking the impact on
Developing products in parallel with vendor input and costs and revenue resulting from the product changes
customer demand. you make?
Updating processes to maximize use of recyclable and reusable Are you making changes to internal processes as well as
intermediate and final packaging. product innovations? For example, leaner manufacturing,
Looking for and instituting innovative ways to reduce raw less waste, lower energy/resource needs, increasing
material and packaging costs. inventory turns?
Improving profitability of new offerings.
Collaborating with R&D to ensure that product labeling meets a
multitude of localized regulations.
CEO, COO, CIO, CTO, Driving sustainability leadership, striving for environmental, Are you adopting lean manufacturing initiatives? Are your
CFO, Champions of ecological, and humane sustainability practices, and reducing systems able to facilitate the adoption of these practices?
Lean costs, mitigating risk, and securing your competitive advantage. Are you working on driving costs out of your manufacturing
Adopting new lean business processes and achieving greater and production processes? Are you able to track the cost
visibility across the supply chain. benefit of making these changes (e.g., in terms of raw
Analyzing past and current operating data to identify materials, energy usage, costs of shipping, packaging,
opportunities to reduce costs in areas like material, packaging, storage, production line, etc.)?
transport, energy, and utility consumption. Are production managers and other leads able to track and
Sharing key indicators and benchmark data so staff can benchmark the costs associated with their area of the
monitor and manage sustainability initiatives in their part of business? What would the impact be if leads could monitor
the business. and track this data?
Using sustainable products in terms of energy and materials Are you making changes to your production process to
usage and end-of-life considerations. reduce packaging and other waste-stream elements?
Reducing the cost and burden of compliance reporting and the How important is compliance reporting to your business?
risk of noncompliance by making it easy to capture and report How much time do you spend managing compliance
compliance information automatically. reporting, and what are the related costs? Are there gaps in
your compliance reporting that you would like to eliminate?
Monitoring real-time inventory levels so manufacturers
and their channels can continually reduce the risk of What are your costs associated with spoilage and expired
obsolete stock. stock? Can you track stock waste by product line? What
impact would reducing stock waste have on your bottom
Coordinating closely with suppliers to minimize out-of-date line?
inventory.
How many systems are you using to track manufacturing,
Integrating information across the company and broader production, distribution, and sales? Are these systems
supply chain to make real-time, fact-based decisions.
integrated? Do you often find that you get different answers
Implementing systems that support new lean business to basic cost and profitability questions depending on which
processes and transparency in the supply chain. system the data is drawn from?
Finding ways to integrate supplier-to-vendor information with How much time is spent collecting and massaging data to
less technologically sophisticated suppliers. support basic decision-making processes such as pricing and
Choosing a strategic IT platform that supports current business delivery commitments?
needs and allows for flexibility of changing business processes
at low total cost of ownership.
Chief Operating Officer, Improving market responsiveness by sensing and responding How do you track inventory movements at the retail level?
CEO, Heads of Sales, more quickly to the changing needs of customers and altered Can you easily see when products are selling ahead or
Marketing, and Service market circumstances, and implementing technology to behind projections?
facilitate improved collaboration and execution with partners. What is your system for accelerating or slowing down
Adopting new business processes such as RFID and higher- production based on current sales and forecasts?
frequency deliveries to track stock movements, speed product
What is your process for sharing production and delivery
deliveries, and keep stock-outs to a minimum.
schedules with distributors and retailers? Would you be able
Providing distributors, retailers, and customers with real-time to sell more product if you could more accurately
information on inventory, availability, and manufacturing communicate product availability timelines?
status.
What costs would you incur if you missed or shorted a
Meeting increasingly strict delivery requirements coupled with delivery with a major customer? How quickly can you sense
short lead times and minimizing charge-backs for missed and respond to production or distribution pipeline issues?
deliveries and other non-compliance issues.
Are you selling through multiple channels? Do you sell
Accessing real-time information from manufacturing and different product lines or different mixes of product lines
suppliers to accurately track product costs and delivery. through each channel? Can you forecast demand and
Supporting multiple sales channels (such as manufacturing profitability by channel?
reps, distributors, retail, institutional, and direct store) in How do you handle forecasting? What is your typical
multiple geographies. forecast lead time? How would faster or more accurate
Constantly track forecasts and respond to overstock of lower- forecasting affect profitability?
demand inventories and stock-outs of higher-demand
products throughout the supply chain.
MICROSOFT DYNAMICS ERP VALUE PROPOSITION TARGET NEEDS, PAIN POINTS, AND
MICROSOFT DYNAMICS ERP BENEFITS
KEY MESSAGE
Good candidates for an upgrade to a Microsoft Dynamics ERP solution may
If you have only 60 seconds to deliver your sales pitch, this is it:
bring up any of the following needs or pain points. Microsoft Dynamics ERP
Microsoft Dynamics ERP is designed for organizations like yours to enable addresses those issues with these related benefits.
you to:
Needs
Develop innovative, profitable products, packaging, and services, and
change internal processes to make the business more effective and Improving innovation success F&B manufacturers must identify
deliver cost savings. opportunities for new products at an early stage, collaborate
internally and with partners, and create and deliver innovative
Improve sustainable business practices to reduce waste, conserve
products and delivery methods in a timely fashion to capture market
resources, and drive profitability.
share profitably.
Sense and respond more quickly to the changing needs of customers
Driving sustainability leadership F&B manufacturers need to
and markets, and adjust deliveries and pricing more precisely to curb
identify opportunities for cost reductions and improved
losses and capitalize on opportunities.
sustainability, and strive for environmental, ecological, and humane
sustainability practices that are used as the basis for reducing costs,
SENSE OF URGENCY mitigating risk, and securing competitive advantage.
Many prospects may prefer to stay the course with their current systems Improving market responsiveness F&B manufacturers need to
rather than invest in technology upgrades during challenging economic sense and respond more quickly to the changing needs of customers
times. The sense of urgency is around this point: and altered market circumstance, and implement technology to
Your current business information management software may be limiting facilitate improved collaboration and execution with partners.
your ability to track and rapidly react to changing market conditions, and Pain Points in the Vertical
to create and deliver the innovative products your customers want.
Integrated systems and increased visibility across the value chain are F&B manufacturers find it especially difficult to track end-consumer
especially crucial to driving profitability and avoiding costly mistakes. Now activity, making it difficult to forecast demand with any precision and
is the right time to invest in an ERP solution to help you sense and resulting in over-stocked or under-stocked shelves. When customer
respond to changing markets, collaborate to create and deliver innovative preferences change, F&B manufacturers must be able to respond quickly
products, and develop sustainable business practices to reduce waste, run with new products and pitches.
more efficiently, and drive profitability. Razor-thin margins demand F&B manufacturers practice sustainable,
highly efficient business processes to cut waste, reduce packaging and
shipping costs, minimize spoilage, and avoid saps on profitability.
A lack of integration between marketing and R&D creates inefficiencies
in developing and market-testing new products to help ensure the right
products are getting to market at the right time.
Who is responsible for decisions related to business I am calling to discuss ways that we might be able to
management/ERP systems in your company? help you with solutions related to ERP.
PROBING QUESTIONS (if you are successful connecting to one of the decision-makers)
Identify your contacts current Pains, Plans, Processes, People, and Price (that is, budget and resource) situations.
Pains: Based on the role of your contact, ask some of the role-specific questions provided on pages 35 of this guide.
Check Point: Is this prospect interested in evaluating ERP solutions from Microsoft?
Is he or she a good candidate for a new solution? If so, move on to the PROVE VALUE section.
PROVE VALUE
GENERAL MICROSOFT DYNAMICS ERP BENEFITS FOR THE VERTICAL EVIDENCE
Improve innovation success New Belgium Brewing deployed a Microsoft Web-based business
intelligence solution with Microsoft Dynamics GP and other widely used
Pain: A lack of integration between marketing and R&D creates inefficiencies Microsoft solutions, allowing employees access to real-time customer data so
in developing and market-testing new products to ensure the right products they can respond to market changes faster, formulate more effective sales
are getting to market at the right time. strategies, and capture quickly changing opportunities.
Benefit: Microsoft Dynamics ERP helps F&B manufacturers develop
innovative, targeted products that satisfy highly specific customer desires by:
SUMMARY
1. Reducing the time required to develop innovative products by improving Makers of Fat Tire Amber Ale and other inspiring craft beers, New Belgium
collaboration with partners and by integrating product development Brewing has been experiencing double-digit year-over-year growth. By
with manufacturing, accounting, marketing, purchasing, and suppliers. expanding on core Microsoft Dynamics ERP functions and implementing a
company-wide intranet built on Microsoft SharePoint Server, New Belgium
2. Integrating multiple facilities and departments to deliver a single, real- has gained greater visibility into decision-driving information. Manufacturing,
time view into all manufacturing, sales, procurement, and financial production, sales forecasting, and budgeting have all benefited from the
activity, with information tailored to specific roles within the expanded solution, and in recent years the company has been able to cut its
organization. shipment forecast error in half, from 8 percent to 4 percent, dramatically
3. Boosting business intelligence and performance by measuring and reducing production overruns and product outages.
delivering industry-specific and customer-specific KPIs to everyone
across the organization with easy-to-use and familiar software. BENEFITS
4. Reducing the time necessary to introduce new products into production Profitably grew its portfolio of craft beers and expanding into new
schedules and adjusting inventory levels at key distribution points. territories with extended access to information across the company.
5. Enabling business intelligence analysis to rapidly determine the success Reduced shipment forecast error by 50 percent, increasing profitability
of new product introductions. and reducing production overruns.
PROVE VALUE
GENERAL MICROSOFT DYNAMICS ERP BENEFITS FOR THE VERTICAL EVIDENCE
Drive sustainability leadership G&J Pepsi-Cola Bottlers enhanced business insight and is projecting an
annual savings of more than U.S.$560,000 in increased productivity gains.
Pain: Margin pressures demand F&B manufacturers practice sustainable,
highly efficient business processes to cut waste, reduce packaging and
SUMMARY
shipping costs, minimize spoilage, and avoid saps on profitability.
With 1,700 employees, G&J Pepsi-Cola Bottlers is one of the largest Pepsi
Benefit: Microsoft Dynamics ERP is designed to help F&B manufacturers
bottlers in the United States. The company used Microsoft Dynamics GP for
implement sustainable processes to reduce waste and control costs.
corporate finances, but each bottling plant used an IBM AS/400 system for
Environmentally sustainable products can also become the basis for increased
payroll and Sage Abra for human resources (HR). By converting its payroll
customer purchases, positive public relations, and increased competitive
and HR systems to Microsoft Dynamics GP, G&J Pepsi is implementing more
advantage:
sustainable business practices and projectsrelated cost savings of more than
1. Effectively and efficiently meeting government regulation requirements $560,000 annually.
using data from product development and the supply chain.
2. Streamlining supply chain and plant manufacturing processes to
BENEFITS
optimize manufacturing capacity, procured materials, and finished Improved reporting through integration of key business information and
product inventories. better reporting tools.
3. Reducing waste in the manufacturing process and improving real-time Centralized administrative duties, avoiding duplication and increasing
visibility into consumer demand to reduce shrinkage and spoilage. productivity.
4. Accelerating the adoption of sustainable and lean manufacturing Reduced administrative overhead, increased access to information, and
processes for cost reduction, helping improve differentiation and future eliminated duplication of data entry projected to save $560,000 per year.
growth.
http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Case_Study_Detail.aspx?
5. Creating transparent tracking and tracing of products across the entire
casestudyid=4000004374
value chain to maximize product availability.
6. Giving retailers the visibility they demand by integrating bar code and
RFID systems into business systems.
7. Automating compliance and performance reporting, and reducing time
and effort needed to respond effectively to audits and product recalls.
PROVE VALUE
GENERAL MICROSOFT DYNAMICS ERP BENEFITS FOR THE VERTICAL EVIDENCE
Improve market responsiveness Sdzucker Polska is responding to customer demands more quickly and has
cut order lead times by 30 percent, with improved access to order,
Pain: F&B manufacturers find it especially difficult to track end-consumer
production, and transportation information across their entire organization.
activity, making it difficult to forecast demand with any precision and
resulting in stock outages and rushed deliveries, or returned product and
SUMMARY
spoilage. When customer preferences change, F&B manufacturers must be
able to respond quickly with new products and pitches. Sdzucker Polska is the sugar industry leader in Poland and Europe. When
Sdzucker Polska formed one large organization out of 18 separate
Benefit: Microsoft Dynamics ERP is designed to help F&B manufacturers
companies, it faced the challenge of preserving the independence of each
access real-time consumer demand data, helping them react quickly to
company while operating as one. Implementing Microsoft Dynamics AX has
changing consumer tastes and desires, and make adjustments to supply and
enabled Sdzucker Polska to automate processes and bring together data
pricing by:
from all manufacturing plants into one central location, streamlining
1. Providing real-time consumer demand data, helping them react quickly planning.
to changing consumer tastes and desires.
2. Helping connect retailers demand requirements directly to
BENEFITS
manufacturing, supplier, and distribution operations. Cut order lead times by 30 percent through improved inventory tracking,
warehouse management, and transportation.
3. Providing accurate reporting and analysis of changing demand to help
ensure more accurate production, pricing, and delivery decisions. With easy access to detailed reports of all production plants, employees
can act quickly when inventory runs low or equipment breaks down and
4. Allowing production planners to run what-if scenarios prior to firm
needs to be repaired.
commitment of production schedules.
Improved customer service by coordinating order workflow, with easy
access to orders and logistical information across all locations.
Optimized cost management through improved logistics and detailed
cost tracking.
http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Case_Study_Detail.aspx?
casestudyid=4000004423
QUALIFY
Based on what weve spoken about today, I would recommend that you look at Microsoft Dynamics ERP.
Can I send you more information related to Microsoft Dynamics ERP?
May we schedule a meeting to determine the best solution to your current needs?