(June 7, 2010)—In August 2005, HPC relocated to a state-of-the-art warehouse facility in South Windsor, Connecticut, and sales doubled in volume over the next few years. HPC Foodservice management realized they were at a crossroads and needed a more capable performance management solution to further grow operations. Although the company’s current system could generate queries, flat ad hoc reporting prevented users from drilling down deeper into the data.
According to Kevin Sullivan, CIO for HPC Foodservice, "I could generate a raw profitability report, for example, that would break down sales per mile and profitability per stop but if I had additional questions about the data, the system fell apart. By the time we wrote another query to answer our question, the issue was past. We needed a faster way to get information to make more timely decisions." The company began an arduous vetting process and finally chose Salient’s solution as it proved to be the fastest and most intuitive. Sullivan also said, "We have every expectation that Salient solutions will generate significant ROI. The hours saved by quickly accessing information will more than pay for our software investment."
HPC Foodservice will follow a 3-phased approach toward implementing Salient solutions. In Phase 1, executives and sales personnel will be able to use the solution and leverage more relevant, actionable data. Phase 2 will integrate financial and general ledger data allowing the company to perform financial reporting using Salient solutions. Phase 3 will bring inventory management and warehouse data into the solution. At the end of Phase 3, the Salient solution will serve the entire HPC enterprise.
In addition, HPC Foodservice asked that Salient solutions have remote access capabilities for their outside sales force. In this way, HPC Foodservice sales representatives can pull up a wealth of relevant food product data on their laptops while meeting in a kitchen with a chef, for example. "In the long run, Salient solutions will act as a clearinghouse for all the company’s organizational data," said Guy Amisano, CEO of Salient Management Company. "This will greatly help HPC Foodservice make smart decisions and help them gain market share."
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