Overview of the Food and Beverage Industry

Over the past few years, the food and beverage industry has been witnessing noticeable changes in the consumption pattern owing to the increasing disposable income across the globe. The food and beverage industry contributes in expanding the economic opportunities as the industry is universal and caters to human life and health. The emerging growth of developing countries coupled with an increase in the population growth and government regulations is impacting food and beverage fircompanies and their business strategies. Additionally, due to the increase in the growth of economies of countries like India, Brazil, and China, customers have the ability to pick from a variety of food and beverage offerings; thereby, creating new market opportunities for firms.

A few fundamental factors that are expected to influence the growth prospects of the food and beverage industry in the coming years include:

• Differentiation in an oversaturated marketplace: It is crucial for food and beverage industry firms to differentiate themselves from others by offering unique offerings to stay ahead of the competition. This is because consumers have a lot of options to choose from when it comes to selecting a food or beverage owing to the advent of several new food and beverage companies.
• Adhering to changing consumer demands: Food and beverage companies and their trading associates should look to create a new supply chain framework that would allow them to cater to the needs of consumers without sacrificing on price, efficiency, availability, product quality, and convenience. This is due to the rising consumer demand for products that are grown sustainably, minimally processed, ethically sourced, and produced with natural ingredients.

These factors are compelling food and beverage firms to leverage the use of procurement best practices solutions. Procurement best practices solutions provide information about the best practices followed by peer group companies within the food and beverage industry space and ensures the delivery of high-quality offerings and personalized experience while cutting down on the costs and driving profitability. These solutions also help companies devise best-in-class sourcing and procurement strategies across their business.

The Business Challenge and Journey

The client, a leading food and beverage industry player wanted to identify the peer companies and their key suppliers within the food and beverage industry to evaluate their sourcing and procurement best practices and capabilities and cut down on the maverick spends across the supply chain. Moreover, the client was facing challenges in ensuring agile discovery of innovative potential partners coupled with advanced risk management, governance, and control capabilities through supply and service provider networks.

To cater to the business requirements of the food and beverage industry client, SpendEdge personalized a comprehensive research methodology. The broad research approach comprised of primary and secondary research methodology coupled with qualitative and quantitative data collection procedures.

During the course of this procurement best practices engagement, the client was able to categorize the high-performing and low-risk suppliers and service providers which helped them control costs associated with regulatory compliance. The engagement also helped them achieve operational efficiency and strict spend compliance while releasing procurement talent to support both product and service innovation. Furthermore, the client obtained insights into the category, supplier, region, and branch-level spend intelligence to implement capital allocation strategies.

Fundamental questions answered in this procurement best practices study include

The Results

The food and beverage client identified the functional drivers and commercial decisions that impacted the profitability and implemented best-in-class sourcing and procurement strategies across the supply chain with the help of this engagement. This engagement further assisted the client in reducing maverick spends across business units.

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