Inetum optimizes ABC product distribution with SAP DSD

The combination of Direct Store Delivery, Transportation Management, and Controlling Profitability Analysis modules has enabled ABC Bottling to significantly increase the loading rate of its delivery trucks while improving its knowledge of customers. A trend that will intensify with the integration of DSD into SAP CRM.

In 2012, the Diana Holding group, a major player in the food industry in Morocco, asked Inetum to roll out SAP in all its subsidiaries. “We started by setting up support functions with the Finance, Control and Purchasing modules, and all the standard ERP modules. Then, in 2015, we started adjusting to be more in line with the nature of each subsidiary's core business,” says Reda Loudiyi, the Group’s CIO.

This adjustment benefited ABC (Atlas Bottling Company), a subsidiary that produces and bottles Coca-Cola-branded soft drinks. In 2016, ABC had SAP DSD (Direct Store Delivery) implemented. The tool allows salespeople to take orders in real time on a hand-held device and to plan deliveries up to receipt. DSD replaced an internal solution that suffered from a lack of interoperability with the SAP environment. “To generate accounting data, specific interfaces had to be built that were difficult to manage,” Mohcin Dria, IT manager at ABC, recalls.

In addition, DSD has enabled the direct integration of 45,000 daily customer invoices into the accounting system, whereas the previous system was limited to invoicing by delivery. This also allows ABC to comply with tax regulations. “The automatic generation of accounting documents is one of the main criteria that led us to choose DSD,” Mohcin Dria explains.

Improved customer approach

At the same time, the fact that DSD automatically couples with the SAP COPA (Controling Profitability Analysis) module provides better customer visibility. “We can now categorize customers according to their sales and optimize presales by addressing them differently. In practice, this means customers with high sales are visited more often than smaller customers," says Reda Loudiyi. “This had improved our customer approach.”

In 2017, Diana Holding added a distribution business to the group with ABC Dis, which delivers products from the Group's eleven logistics platforms to drinks outlets, mini-markets, and grocery stores around the country. ABC's sister company shares the same DSD back and front end, both for order-taking with competitive intelligence and market-price control by ABC's 150 sales reps, and for deliveries, invoicing, and collection by ABC Dis's 160 delivery people.

To optimize its deliveries, the distribution subsidiary has been equipped with the TM (Transportation Management) module. The system uses data generated by DSD to automatically plot routes for delivery drivers according to predefined criteria (mileage, fuel consumption, time constraints, etc.). Previously, the operation was done manually in part by dispatchers who, with their knowledge of the field, optimized the data in an Excel file before reinjecting it into DSD in order to load it onto delivery drivers' devices. The new solution allows ABC Dis to centralize the dispatching of 11 delivery platforms while increasing the truck-loading rate by 5% in the first year. “This means an annual gain of 2 million dirhams (about €200,000 - Ed.) which ensures a return on investment over 3 years,” Mohcin Dria points out.

A decade of mutual trust

While the benefits are now tangible for ABC, the rollout of the solution took longer than expected: 15 months whereas it was initially designed for 6 months. Hitches came from the fact that the product was still young. There had been few previous DSD implementations in the world and SAP lacked reliable contacts to move forward efficiently. So much so that developers from Germany (SAP's country of origin) who are experts in the product had to move to Tangier. They developed 34 versions to stabilize the solution. “This contributed a lot to the development of DSD,” Diana Holding's CIO affirms.

The relatively unprecedented situation was resolved thanks to the mutual trust between the integrator and its client. “For a project like this, with strong expectations coming from both sides, the key to success is a trusted partner. As long as there is trust and transparency on the various issues, you can move forward. Inetum's contribution was crucial to the success of the project,” Reda Loudiyi recalls. “We got a powerful tool and were able to adopt SAP solutions to address this rather specific sector of beverage distribution.”

Diana Holding has since reaffirmed its trust in Inetum by signing up for a new project. By June 2022, ABC will go live with the migration of DSD to SAP CRM. “Customer data will be integrated more effectively so that we can correlate it with competitive product information. This embedded CRM will give us more visibility and a better market approach,” Reda Loudiyi states with satisfaction. The CIO is counting on Inetum's expertise to bring the plan together. “Inetum has always made a success of our projects. For as long as Inetum has the skills and knows our IS inside out, our partnership will continue,” he concludes.