Client Situation
Our client is a food distribution company in the UAE, primarily supplying fresh foods (fresh fruits and vegetables) to government, retail, corporate and HoReCa clients. Considering a highly competitive fresh food distribution industry in the UAE and a need for innovation and optimization in the business model, the company engaged Cedar to assist with a fast-track way forward growth strategy and roadmap design.
Cedar’s Approach
To assist the client with a way forward strategy with an “outside-in” approach, Cedar performed the following tasks:
- Detailed market assessment to understand best practices, trends, and challenges in the fresh food distribution business globally and in the UAE
- Competitive analysis and benchmarking to understand the nature of the business and operating model of leading fresh food distribution companies in the UAE
- Comprehensive assessment of the company’s financial performance and measured profitability across 35+ customers and 1000+ vendors
- Gap analysis of the organization structure and operating model to identify issues and provide recommendations on the three major areas of improvement and future investments
- Exhaustive review of the current procurement and sales processes to enhance team efficiency, customer output and scope of automation and technology infrastructure improvement within the company
- Extensive comparative study across 6 critical success factors for internal and external growth drivers in the company
- Development of the following programs and designs for business growth and operational consistency
- KPI-based Sales and Marketing program
- Strong Procurement Design
- Supply Process Design
Outcome
The program resulted in identifying areas of improvement, areas of investment as well as a holistic way forward strategy for increased business growth of the company. Cedar delivered:
- Infrastructure and Technology Development - across 2 formats of business operations (Retail and E-commerce)
- Redesign of the Business and Operating Model for 2 channels of business (B2B and B2C)
- Realignment of the Organization Design including JDs, KPIs and Roles and Responsibilities – with 5 functions as key focus areas
- Lead and Account Management focused Sales and Marketing framework – across 4 key industry segments
- Process Design for 3 divisions –
- Procurement (~60% import dependency)
- Distribution
- Logistics