QlikView | Case Study | The Cocoa Trees The Cocoa Trees tastes sweet Solution Overview The Cocoa Trees The Cocoa Trees is ’s largest success in eliminating workfl ow chocolate distributor and retailer representing more than 35 internationally renowned chocolate brands such as ineffi ciencies and improving Kraft (Toblerone, Milka, Daim, Cote d’Or) Masterfoods (M&M’s, Snickers, Mars), Ferrero Rocher, Herhseys, Cadbury and Nestle. The company exports to duty-free business decisions with QlikView operators in the region and has sales and warehousing facilities in Singapore, , Indonesia and to service The fi rst thing that the CEO does every morning is to check the the domestic markets (supermarkets and independent stores) of those countries. company’s sales performance using QlikView. He gets an It operates 15 chocolate boutiques in overview of the business through the visually rich, interactive Singapore. dashboards, drilling down to operational details, if required, to Industry “make time-sensitive decisions. & Wholesale Distribution Wess Wong, Director, Finance and Buisness Development, Function Focus Network Agencies (s) Pte Ltd, owner of The Cocoa Trees. Sales and Inventory

Geography ” Singapore The Cocoa Trees is the largest fi nancial statements, and based on batch distributor and retailer of chocolate processing, became inadequate for the Solution and confectionary products in the rapidly growing operations. They were The Cocoa Trees deployed QlikView to Pacifi c region. A local success story, it unable to generate reports on inventory 10 key business users across the sales started in 1991 with just 5 people, levels on-demand or in real-time. Twice divisions (export, retail, local, purchasing, representing 2 brands. In 1999, it a month, the warehouse supervisor had accounts and top management), all within 40 manhours. With QlikView, management launched the popular The Cocoa Trees to physically inspect stocks to prepare can view the real time sales performance chocolate boutique stores in Singapore. an inventory expiry date report to every morning, and each department can Today, it has a portfolio of more than monitor the shelf-life of these perishable analyze the data by drilling down to the 35 internationally renowned brands items. It was time-consuming as each transaction/document level. such as Kraft (Toblerone, Milka, Daim, report took two days to complete, with inevitable errors. Service levels were Data Source Systems unsatisfactory as the order fulfi llment Application: MS Navision Database: MS SQL Server cycle took too long. Salespeople could not propose or confi rm orders with QlikTech Partner customers immediately against Knowledge Management Solutions Pte Ltd inventory levels. On top of that, because RIBIZ SystemsSystems, Consulting APACformerly Services aka. PteIBIZ Ltd of the lack of clarity on inventory, some salespeople circumvented the system by physically pre-packing stocks at the warehouse to reserve the stocks, leading to many internal confl icts.

With the old system, there was no automatic comparison between current Cote d’Or) Masterfoods (M&M’s, and historical sales performance. Users Snickers, Mars), Ferrero Rocher, had to painstakingly cut and paste data Herhseys, Cadbury and Nestle, and a into a single fi le in order to get this distribution network that covers most information. of Indo-China, Southeast, North and Northeast Asia and as far west as . Clarity and accuracy at the click of a mouse Challenge: A crippling inventory control system In 2004, the company decided that it had to eliminate these workfl ow In 2004, the company found that its ine— ciencies and started looking for a accounting system, which was designed solution that would help them achieve for generating static reports and this. QlikView | Case Study | The Cocoa Trees

“We started looking for a solution that orders can be confi rmed immediately enables real-time, user-friendly and with the clarity of inventory status. fl exible access to information. I was very pleasantly surprised at how This greatly improved e˜ ciency as the QlikView could deliver dynamic insights sales team knew exactly how much Deployed QlikView instantaneously at an attractive price inventory is available and who has made to 10 key point. I knew this was exactly what reservations against what stock. business users I was looking for,” said Wess Wong, Salespeople can easily analyze the sales within 40 manhours Director, Finance and Business information according to di“ erent Development, Focus Network Agencies variables, such as sales in weight, (S) Pte Ltd, owner of The Cocoa Trees. quantity or value and sales by “QlikView provides business country, by customer and by SKU to intelligence so quickly. All you do is plan their sales strategy, rather than click your mouse and you will know selling blindly. everything from inventory status, customer demand patterns, to sales The company now plans and executes performance. The short implementation more e“ ective campaigns to drive sales time was also impressive.” with this new level of insight into their data. For example, by knowing the In January 2005, The Cocoa Trees stock expiry dates, stocks can be cleared started implementing QlikView. It took at a discount at the right time, rather only 40 man-hours for it to be than too early. By knowing how many customized to their needs. gifts with purchases have been given out and for which brands, as well as the The Cocoa Trees used Navision to invoice numbers, the company can now assign expiry dates to inventory, allow fi le the claims from the right suppliers. users to “lot-track” inventory by expiry With QlikView, it is now possible for date and allow transaction processing/ users to automatically compare posting to maintain inventory balances historical and current sales information. in real-time. Data from Navision was then put through QlikView to create “The fi rst thing that the CEO does dynamic dashboards and analysis that every morning is to check the company’s o“ ered much more insight than static sales performance using QlikView. He reports typically generated from ERP gets an overview of the business through systems. the visually rich, interactive dashboards, drilling down to operational details, if With QlikView, information is required, to make time-sensitive constantly updated, and all decisions,” said Wess Wong. departments from export sales, retail sales, local sales, purchasing, accounts and even the CEO, can access inventory and sales information in real-time. Reports for suppliers can be generated instantaneously, and customer

QlikView provides business intelligence so quickly. All you do is click your mouse and you will know everything from inventory status, customer “ demand patterns, to sales performance. The short implementation time was also impressive.

Wess Wong, Director, Finance and Business Development, Focus Network Agencies (s) Pte Ltd, owner of The Cocoa Trees.

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