WELCOME Co., Ltd., which operates food and beverage businesses such as DEAN & DELUCA, introduced the “Gulf EDI” system in 2014 at 32 locations among its operated brands. This system manages order processing, inventory management, and item-level management. As a result, the company reduced the number of paper invoices received each month from several hundred to zero, and it became possible to track inventory — over 100,000 items — across stores, warehouses, and e-commerce in real time. Based on this success, in the fall of 2018, the system was expanded to 18 DEAN & DELUCA locations. We spoke with DEAN & DELUCA, which provides a variety of food services including cafes, delicatessens, and grocery stores.
Hundreds of invoices every month were manually entered — Background and Motivation for Implementation
Please tell us about your business.
DEAN & DELUCA is a food select shop that brings together delicious foods from around the world and conveys the joy of eating.
What kind of operations were in place before introducing Gulf CSM?
We had been using a core system from a major vendor for about 10 years and had been manually inputting paper delivery slips into the system for aggregation.
What prompted you to consider implementing a new system?
When our contract for the previous system ended, we asked GulfNet — which was already being used in another business division of our company — to support DEAN & DELUCA as well.
How has your experience been using Gulf CSM so far?
We’re still in the early stages of implementation and there are many challenges, but with the support of GulfNet, our monthly operations are steadily improving. While we haven’t yet seen visible operational improvements, we feel they are just around the corner.
How do you plan to utilize Gulf CSM as your business continues to grow?
As our business grows, we expect to increase our dealings with small producers across Japan who are focused on making high-quality products.
GulfNet’s EDI made it possible for new users to get started smoothly with minimal support. Going forward, we would like to build strong relationships with each of our partners through transactions made using this EDI system.
Implementation Effects
- Theoretical inventory for over 50,000 products from 600 suppliers can now be viewed in real time across stores, warehouses, and e-commerce sites.
- Analog order processes using phone and fax were fully digitized, resulting in fewer paper records and invoices.
- Inventory and item-level management became possible by product and by department.
- Real-time inventory deduction from POS sales data.
- Sales and inventory data from both food and retail POS systems are now accessible.
