Quick adoption leads to positive results across the entire business
Industry
Wholesale Distribution / Convenience Stores
Headquarters Location
Stafford, TX
Size of Supply Chain
Stock over 6,000 items for over 2,500 member stores
New Horizon Products
Objective
Replace manual planning processes with an AI-powered solution that would streamline procurement planning and improve financial performance.
Solution
Implemented New Horizon products in 12 weeks, easily integrating with GHRA in-house systems and replacing cumbersome manual processes and spreadsheets.
“The relationship and the partnership are very important. In other implementations, once you sign the document and start the project, you can feel like you’re on an island. That’s not the case with New Horizon. The team is super responsive. They’re on top of it. They understand our business.”
– Anees Burhani, VP of Supply Chain Operations, GHRA
A New Planning System for Today’s Wholesale Distribution Needs
The Greater Houston Retailers Cooperative Association (GHRA) supports over 2,500 independently owned and operated convenience stores in the greater Houston area.
They provide their member stores with everything from beverages and candies to snacks, tobacco, and novelty items, all at attractive pricing. GHRA offers an end-to-end solution, from ordering through delivery.
Replacing Spreadsheets with AI Planning Power
GHRA was struggling to plan over 6,000 items with outdated, manual planning processes and systems.
- Transportation costs and logistics were a major pain point.
- Fluctuating inventory led to stockouts and write-offs that impacted their bottom line.
- Releasing purchase orders in a timely manner was critical, but difficult.
The organization wanted to have better control over inventory and improve their financial performance.
New Horizon: A Trusted Business Partner
Anees Burhani, VP of Supply Chain Operations at GHRA, oversees all aspects of operations including procurement, category management, transportation, customer service, IT, and marketing. GHRA aims to make their customers successful through a seamless process. Anees’s primary goal is to ensure a great customer experience.
GHRA did a thorough side-by-side evaluation of multiple vendors, looking especially at usability, scalability, analytics capabilities, cost, and time to implement. New Horizon won hands down.
In addition to the evaluation criteria, another factor was Anees’s experience with New Horizon at a prior company. “The relationship and the partnership are very important. In other implementations, once you sign the document and start the project, you can feel like you’re on an island. That’s not the case with New Horizon. The team is super responsive. They’re on top of it. They understand our business.”
Upgrading Visibility and Accuracy with New Horizon’s AI-Powered Solution
“We were right on track from a timeline and budget standpoint,” says Anees. “We went live in exactly 12 weeks.”
The planners immediately started using New Horizon’s Buyers Workbench for procurement planning, and Demand Planning for insight into customer demand. The system also gave them visibility into lead times and safety stock settings that they didn’t have previously.
“We were able to transfer all our information from Excel into New Horizon — one system that’s easy to manage. We can quickly make changes in forecasts, safety stocks, or lead times and the system adapts to them right away,” Burhani notes.
“New Horizon easily integrated with our in-house systems. Our IT team was thrilled. It was seamless.”
Early Wins Thanks to a Single Platform
GHRA has achieved the following quantitative benefits:
- 10-12% reduction in overall inventory in under 90 days
- 20-point increase in forecast accuracy, from 60-70% to 85%
- 9-point improvement in stock availability, from 89% to GHRA’s target of 98%
According to Anees, “This was probably the easiest solution I’ve ever implemented in terms of getting buy-in from the planners. They saw the benefits immediately.”
In addition to measurable improvements in inventory, forecast accuracy, and fill rates, GHRA has seen notable benefits in the other areas:
- Employee morale: Planners feel much less pressure to release purchase orders. They can focus on the items needed, instead of wading through all 6,000 as they did in the past, freeing up time to engage in other areas of the business. They can react quickly to demand increases, especially for promotions. Training new planners is faster and easier.
- Financials: GHRA quickly cut several million dollars of dead inventory. Another big positive has been the ability to spread purchases out over time, ensuring they have inventory when they need it, rather than buying it all upfront and tying up cash flow.
- Customer service: GHRA now receives far fewer customer service calls in general, and in particular, fewer complaints involving items that weren’t received.
“Overall, the project was extremely successful,” says Burhani. “The team is excited to eliminate wasted hours planning in Excel and thrilled to have such a powerful, responsive system.”
To Learn More
Ready to learn more about how New Horizon can optimize your supply chain? Talk to one of our experts today.