Overview of the Food Service Industry

In the past few years, the food service industry is witnessing a steady growth owing to a growing preference to eat outside, rising participation of women in the workforce and double income families – all creating new prospects for the industry. Moreover, health and hygiene conscious consumers with wellness on the mind are moving towards healthy eating options. As a result, food service players are meeting customer demands and preferences by adding healthy food options to their menu, ranging from vegan, low carbohydrates, gluten-free, lactose-free, and diabetic meals.

Let’s look at some of the vital factors that are expected to influence the growth prospects of the food service industry in the coming years.

• Technological disruptions: With rising influence of digital media on consumer decision making, firms operating in the food service space need to adopt innovative technologies to enhance consumer experience and improve operational efficiency. Firms are also expected to deploy new supply chain frameworks that allow them to meet the needs of the consumers without sacrificing on product quality, price, convenience, availability, and efficiency.
• Diversity in an oversaturated market scenario: Today’s customers have numerous options to select from when it comes to picking a food or beverage offering of their choice due to the improved economies and the advent of several new food service industries across the globe. Therefore, differentiating themselves from competitors by offering innovative and unique product and service offerings to stay ahead of the competition.

As a result of these factors, food service industry players are leveraging the use of supply market intelligence studies. The supply market intelligence studies help firms operating in the food service space to reduce their procurement spends and deliver a superior product and service offerings to their clients. These studies also assist companies in gaining an in-depth understanding of the latest trends, developments, risks, and recommendations on formulating procurement best practices across the food service industry.

The Business Challenge and Journey

The client, a leading food service industry player with multiple business units across the globe, was facing challenges in supplier failure rate due to improper risk management planning and strategies implemented. Additionally, the procurement organization was overloaded and focused on not so essential activities rather than focusing on strategic activities. Also, the supplier diversity program was not successful as an appropriate strategy was not formulated. The procurement team was unable to track the performance of their diversity goals. As a result, the client was lagging on supplier diversity metrics when compared to their competitors.

To assist the client in transforming their procurement organization into a strategic arm, the supply market intelligence experts at SpendEdge tailored a wide-ranging research methodology. The research approach comprised of primary and secondary research coupled with qualitative and quantitative data collection procedures.

During the course of this supply market intelligence engagement, the food service client divided their spend groups into four parts, and each resource was responsible for a set of groups which was also linked to set of onsite category managers. Moreover, to ensure that the offsite model was robust and dependable proper reporting methodology was formulated. The client also executed all their strategies and achieved their KRAs.

Fundamental questions answered in this supply market intelligence engagement

The Results

This supply market intelligence engagement helped the food service client implement supplier diversity programs and subsequently manage supplier risk on an ongoing basis. Additionally, the client achieved an annual savings of $20 million across business units.

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