Data Visualization

Data visualization brings 100% visibility of vendor performance for global manufacturer

» Data visualization brings 100% visibility of vendor performance for global manufacturer

A USA-based company that manufacturers products for the fundraising and nonprofits sector. They leverage a highly scientific marketing approach and advanced data analytics to service over 500 charities spread across five continents.

Business Need

The company outsourced its digital print production to multiple vendors located in the regions like Asia, Europe and USA. The vendor data was stored in siloes and provided zero real-time insights into the overall process. The company conducted margin comparisons and analysis at an interval of every six months. However, these results didn’t factor in currency fluctuations, regional differences and other variable costs.

In absence of a centralized reporting system, the stakeholders presented periodic updates on revenue and profit metrics during in-person meetings. The end result was that the company incurred heavy losses due to grossly ineffective negotiations with vendors.

They required real-time visibility and analytical insights on every vendor, every partner and every order for efficient margin-comparison and quotations.

Hence, they partnered with Hitech Analytics to track vendor performance across regions with a business reporting and analytical tool to:

Integrate historical data on business unit performance, fixed and variable costs, product volume, customer billing, etc.
Consolidate data despite differences in parameter names, values, units, etc.
Make data accessible to all stakeholders

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Solution

Hitech Analytics deployed business analytical tool for margin analysis that focused on:

Tracking vendor performance across different production locations, customer and product categories
Evaluating product usage patterns, billings across product types and profit at customer and product level.
Setting up intuitive reports that delivers instant alerts and notifications on margin fluctuations across profit drivers, varying patterns and trends
Tracking estimated vs. actual comparison of cost or margins
Delivering real-time insights on vendor’s daily production capacity and quality
Providing data accessibility to users across locations across devices

Approach

To overcome challenges related to data consolidation, integration and standardization, Hitech data specialists developed a new database structure that included:

Gathering data across sites, products and customers on fixed and variable costs, customer billings, sales, profit margins and fluctuations across locations.
Making the data fit to be processed with a user portal to nullify issues with incremental data transfer.
Cleansing and integrating data with a semi-automated process.
Identifying the relevant KPIs for:

Accurate margin comparisons for manufacturing units spread across time zones
Actual drivers for margin fluctuations
Evaluating most profitable products, vendors, customers and segments

Creating an intuitive dashboard for real-time reports and insights on performance per unit, per customer and product.
Enabling the client to compare and analyze profit margins across manufacturing sites based on requirements, measure product mix at each product level and get net profitability contribution across different customer segments as well as individual customers.

Results

Enabled 100% real-time visibility for vendor performance, cost and revenue drivers
Significantly reduced margin leakage
Increased resource utilization on high-value tasks