As we enter a new chapter of the pandemic, the use of technology within the wholesale distribution industry continues to accelerate. Distributors are in the perfect position to showcase their successes and innovation leadership as an essential member of the supply chain.

Last year, we were excited to receive a significant number of 麻豆原创 Innovation Award submissions, with six finalists and two notable distributors winning the honor. In 2021, trailblazing customers and partners truly stood out by combining their ingenuity and the power of 麻豆原创 solutions to achieve operational excellence and business innovation.

Wholesale Distribution Innovation Award Highlights

AmerisourceBergen

The leading global healthcare company makes a positive impact on the health of people and communities around the world by advancing the development and delivery of pharmaceuticals and healthcare products.

In 2013, the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) was passed to protect the safety and security of the supply chain due to the counterfeit drug market in developing countries causing thousands of deaths. To protect the U.S. market, the DSCSA required that drugs be traced for millions of daily shipments across thousands of companies.

AmerisourceBergen and 麻豆原创 stepped up to the plate, along with 12 other pharmaceuticalpartners, to pursue the development of 麻豆原创 Advanced Track and Trace for Pharmaceuticals. This allowed them to manage the drug supply chain at the batch and unit level. 麻豆原创 and AmerisourceBergen also collaborated on the 麻豆原创 Information Collaboration Hub for Life Sciences to meet the messaging regulations for AmerisourceBergen and its thousands of trading partners.

This solution now tracks the supply chain at the batch level for more than 100 customers, protecting business continuity for the $185 billion pharmaceutical supply chain, 250,000 messages exchanged daily among hundreds of trading partners, and 14,000 employees protected from the burdens of these new regulations. Eighteen of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies and two U.S. distributors, responsible for 65% of the distribution volume in the U.S. market, are all on 麻豆原创 Advanced Track and Trace for Pharmaceuticals.

TRUSCO

The industrial distributor supports Japan鈥檚 manufacturing industry with its PRO TOOLs consumables, tools, furniture, fixtures, and other goods that are needed in factories and construction sites. To meet its growth goals, the company needed an agile, next-generation solution to support a digital transformation initiative.

To streamline business operations and eliminate manual processes, TRUSCO implemented 麻豆原创 S/4HANA, 麻豆原创 Integration Suite. This enabled the company to automate business processes and inventory management. Customers enjoyed increased convenience with improved business productivity, speed, and accuracy through automating quotations and inventory management based on historical information and sales insights of over 2 million products and 380,000 stocked items.

The benefit of improvements allowed Trusco to automate 2,949 hours per month worth of previously manual quotation tasks, shorten response time to customers鈥� orders by 29%, and reduce replenishment time from several hours to zero, offering customer-specific and seasonal inventory directly to the customer’s location.

PROMESA

The leading distributor of tools, hardware, and automotive products based in Guayaquil, Ecuador, supplies spare parts for vehicles and construction machinery, plus a long list of smaller hardware items that includes everything from nails to industrial drills.

In order to automate aging manual processes to better meet customer expectations for the right product at the right time, PROMESA implemented 麻豆原创 S/4HANA as its digital core and integrated 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors, 麻豆原创 Concur, 麻豆原创 Sales Cloud, and 麻豆原创 Service Cloud solutions to shape itself into a true intelligent enterprise.

PROMESA immediately saw immense results, with a 30% increase in sales due to product design improvements, only two hours to process a typical report that normally took 12 days, and only five seconds to run an average core process that used to take five minutes. With this implementation, PROMESA was able to meet customer expectations, improving the overall customer and employee operations experience.

Bechtle AG

One of Germany鈥檚 largest IT systems houses, the European leader in IT e-commerce combines services for the operation and maintenance of industrial and public sector infrastructure. With 75 systems houses, offices in 14 EU countries, and partnerships on every continent, its business knows few boundaries.

Bechtle AG and 麻豆原创 collaborated on a warehouse robotics solution, which integrates robotics into 麻豆原创 Extended Warehouse Management (麻豆原创 EWM). On a Kubernetes backbone, the company created a smart, flexible automation system, allowing multi-vendor robots to move crates from point-to-point.

The advantage of this solution is that it can support many use cases. It hooks together robotics fleets, even heterogeneous ones, into an existing system using 麻豆原创 EWM. IT governance procedures integrate plug-and-play collaborative robots that perform 鈥�3D鈥� — dull, dangerous, or dirty — tasks in logistics and help bring operations beyond Industry 4.0, resulting in a yearly 30% ROI from this robotic project.

Border States Electric

Border States Electric (BSE), the seventh largest electrical distributor in the U.S., provides innovative supply chain products and services to the construction, industrial, and utility markets. As COVID-19 impacted supply chains, BSE needed to optimize and streamline its purchase and sales order management to specifically manage delayed and escalated orders. It was critical to consolidate disjointed systems and tools, increase cross-team visibility, and reduce the duplication of work.

By implementing an integrated order management cockpit on 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform, the company was able to experience end-to-end, real-time visibility into sales and purchase orders. This enabled colleagues from procurement, customer service, and application engineering to collaborate and efficiently manage material delays, escalations, reduce duplicate work thereby increasing CSP and buyer productivity by 2% and save 16,000 CSR hours so that they could deliver value-added services to their customers.

Emerging from the Pandemic Stronger

Groundbreaking wholesale distributors transformed their business models while adjusting to the change in buyer behavior and supply chain constraints, not to mention workforce limitations. They seized on these opportunities to digitally transform business to accommodate these monumental shifts in business dynamics.

In 2021, distributors have continued to ensure operations run smoothly, delivering essential goods around the world and keeping the supply chain on track, all while balancing volatility in demand. The time is now to have your innovation story heard and recognized.

Share Your Wholesale Distribution Innovation Story and Win

The objective of this year鈥檚聽 is to celebrate the achievements of cutting-edge companies that have harnessed the power of 麻豆原创 technology to become an intelligent enterprise, thrive in new business realities, differentiate themselves, achieve tremendous business outcomes, and adapt to evolving customer needs.

麻豆原创 is delighted to showcase these inspirational customer and partner stories. More information on the .聽 For details on the judging criteria and category definitions, visit the . The submission period is open now and all entries are due by February 1, 2022.聽and be sure to join the conversation online using the hashtag #麻豆原创Innovation. For more innovation stories, follow聽聽on Twitter and join us on聽.

Magnus Meier is global vice president of Wholesale Distribution at 麻豆原创.

As a central link within the economy and food supply chain, wholesale distributors act behind the scenes to source and distribute goods to those in need around the world.

Restaurants, cafeterias, industrial caterers, hospitals, nursing homes, and other users of foodservice products depend on wholesale distributors to deliver high-quality products 鈥� such as protein, produce, beverages, kitchen equipment, dining supplies, and cleaning supplies 鈥� when, where, and how they need them.

Unfortunately, approximately of the food produced for human consumption is lost each year before it ever reaches the wholesale market. Even worse, additional food is wasted at the retail and consumer stages of the supply chain.

With the #WorldFoodDay movement, leading industry practitioners are turning the tables on hunger relief, food donation, and sustainability efforts around the world.

Grow, Nourish, Sustain. Together: Our Actions Are Our Future

was brought to life by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as a collective initiative across 150 countries. As the most celebrated day of the United Nations (UN) calendar, World Food Day promotes worldwide awareness and action for hunger relief and healthy diets.

This year鈥檚 World Food Day theme — 鈥淕row, Nourish, Sustain. Together. Our Actions Are Our Future.鈥� — celebrates the 75th anniversary of FAO. This theme builds on decades of progress within the industry while acknowledging the recent global pandemic, which has had a notable impact on consumer behavior and the food supply chain. Depending on the ever-changing economic landscape, COVID-19 is expected to add another to the already 2 billion hungry people around the world.

To relieve worldwide hunger, one may suggest the simple answer of producing more food. Considering , there is a better way. FAO advises that the answer lies in a renewed focus on the sustainability of food systems.

鈥淚nnovative technologies, science, research, and private sector companies can help us to transform the ways in which we produce and consume food 鈥� for the well-being of our communities, our economies, and our planet,鈥� .

As a core player in the supply chain, leading wholesale distributors are dedicated to innovating with sustainable sourcing, purchasing, and distribution practices.

Celebrating #FoodHeroes in Wholesale Distribution

Wholesale distributors are acting as #FoodHeroes by effectively utilizing technology to positively impact lives around the world, transforming how food is produced, processed, traded, consumed, and wasted to ensure a resilient and sustainable future.

One inspiring example of a food hero in today鈥檚 challenging landscape is National DCP. The company was formed in 2012 after five regional companies merged into one national cooperative and has been recognized with numerous awards including for four consecutive years.

Now representing one of the largest foodservice distributors in the United States, National DCP operates as a US$2 billion supply chain management organization serving nearly 10,000 Dunkin鈥� quick-service restaurants in the U.S. and distributing products to more than 40 countries.

NDCP prides itself on imagining a different, better way whenever possible. The company is constantly seeking and embracing innovation, investigating new supply chain opportunities and practices to deliver increased value to its members. To support its passion and curiosity, the NDCP Community Connexions program supports impactful causes in the areas of healthcare, food, and sustainability that are important to its customers and employees.

鈥淕iving back to the community by supporting hunger relief, sustainability, and causes related to health and wellness is a significant priority for National DCP,鈥� said Scott Carter, chief executive officer of National DCP. 鈥淎s a supply chain leader in the food service industry, we understand the important role organizations such as ours play in helping people dealing with hunger, especially during these challenging times.鈥�

Since the inception of the NDCP Community Connexions corporate social responsibility initiative, extra focus has been placed on:

• Hunger relief: Supporting hunger needs through partnerships with food banks and hunger relief organizations
• Sustainability: Supporting a green environment through sustainable building, sourcing, and packaging initiatives
• Healthcare: Supporting research and development through partnerships with hospitals and research organizations

Through partnerships formed with Feeding America and other local organizations, NDCP has donated more than 180,000 pounds of food and over 4,000 gallons of dairy during the height of COVID-19.

Outside of the pandemic itself, NDCP and Dunkin鈥� Donut franchises have raised more than $6.1 million for the program, which aims to bring the simple joys of childhood to kids battling hunger or illness. Since 2006, the Joy in Childhood Foundation has distributed more than $26 million in grants to national and local nonprofits that provide joy to kids battling hunger and illness. In 2019 alone, the foundation provided to children and families through grants.

National DCP is one of the many hidden food heroes of the supply chain that has risen to the challenge to battle hunger relief and make food systems more resilient and robust so they can withstand increasing volatility. We hope that NDCP inspires your organization to take action to support our world鈥檚 future 鈥� however big or small it may be, every bit helps.

How to Help

Corporations and citizens alike can have a massive impact on how communities, economies, and the food supply chain respond to a range of challenges, including hunger relief and climate change.

Here are six recommendations to support sustainable food systems within an organization:

1. Promote food safety: Respect national food safety regulations and measures to protect food as well as staff. Reinforce good hygiene practices and improved food safety and quality measures along the food chains, especially in developing countries.
2. Adopt intelligent technologies: Invest in sustainable, resilient food systems supported by intelligent technologies that will adequately source based upon customer demand, quickly accommodate food diversion, track and trace, and more.
3. Share knowledge: Share expertise or technologies with other industry practitioners to help improve sustainable food production and livelihoods. For example, 麻豆原创 to develop a mobile app that helped families find food and free resources during the COVID-19 pandemic.
4. Adopt sustainable practices: Aim to source ethical products from sustainable suppliers and focus on enabling a supply chain with a solid waste reduction program.
5. Create a food donation program: Food distributors in the U.S. alone donate cases of food and beverage products and volunteer 368,000 hours to charity annually. An can positively impact communities in addition to improving your bottom line and brand image.
6. Inspire action within an organization and community: Develop a corporate social responsibility initiative like National DCP that inspires action within your team to fight hunger and build sustainable practices. Roll up your sleeves and get involved in charity organizations that align with your organization鈥檚 brand, mission, and vision to make a difference in your local community.

For more information about how 麻豆原创 can help the food service distribution industry build a sustainable and resilient future, and follow 麻豆原创 Industries on and .

Magnus Meier is vice president and global head of the Wholesale Distribution Business Unit at 麻豆原创. Follow him on and .