I manage the Customer Marketing program at JDA. That means that I get to talk to customers from around the world every day. I have the opportunity to hear their stories, understand how they’re using our solutions, and to get to know more about them, their families and career journeys. Many days I think my job is the best one at JDA! That’s why this is my favorite time of year.
Each year in late April or early May, JDA team members, along with 2000 or more customers and partners, get together for our annual customer conference. At the event, we take the opportunity to hear from and recognize some of our many customers in sessions and through award programs. I’m delighted that we’re celebrating our 13th year of our Real Results Awards and this year launching the inaugural JDA ICON awards. I’m also really excited to tell you about a few of our winners, who we honored this week in Dallas, at JDA ICON 2019!
The JDA ICON award is given to senior leaders who have led remarkable transformation within their company. Check out what these amazing leaders are doing:
Robert van de Kerkhof, Chief Commercial Officer at Lenzing has spearheaded his company’s digital transformation as the company transitioned from a commodity supplier to a specialty partnership player. He and his team created a holistic S&OP process using JDA, driving value creation by optimizing product allocation to high margin regions and customers and a business integration process in which relevant company functions align on short- and medium-term topics.
Loblaw Senior Vice President of Supply Chain Hardeep Kharaud has led Loblaw’s digital evolution in retail, leading the company’s data science team to evaluate and quickly take advantage of digital technology innovation in the areas of machine learning and artificial intelligence. He is overseeing Loblaw’s investment in the JDA® LuminateTM solutions portfolio as it drives its supply chain, merchandising and store operations initiatives to deliver improved service levels across all stores.
Tyler Carter, Vice President of Partner Technology at Starbucks,knows that delivering a great customer experience starts with the first person you meet when you walk through the door. That’s why she’s leading a transformative workforce management initiative to empower Starbucks partners (employees) around the world through mobile-friendly and dynamic shift scheduling, with real-time visibility, live reporting, compliance and more. The goal? Ensuring a differentiated, positive experience for customers and partners alike.
It’s wonderful to look back at the more than 125 customers we’ve recognized as Real Results Award winners through the years. I have the honor of reviewing all of the nominations and can attest that there are many amazing stories, making it hard to select those who will be our annual award recipients. Following are some highlights from a few of our 2019 honorees:
Sprint is the Real Results Award winner for Best Innovation. Sprint was using spreadsheets and databases to forecast and plan its network inventory purchases. By introducing JDA innovation into the business, Sprint has decreased planning time by approximately 80%. Manual reporting by planners has been vastly reduced, and they have more control in planning and forecasting processes, introducing greater supply chain agility into scenario planning. With this strong foundation, Sprint can move from a monthly Network Inventory & Operational Planning process to a bi-weekly or weekly process if desired.
Part of JDA’s formula for customer success is to work with world-class partners. That’s why it’s exciting to announce that McKesson Canada and JDA partner KPMG are being recognized for the Best Partner Project. McKesson, the oldest and largest healthcare company in the United States, needed to overhaul its procurement function with a redefined supply chain strategy. Working with JDA and partner KPMG, McKesson deployed JDA to reduce manual supply planning across the organization. Today, McKesson has more accurate, stable and unbiased forecasts, better plans, more accurate and timely purchase orders, all of which result in improved inventory turns and efficiency. McKesson has reduced days of stock by nearly 5% vs. one year ago, maintained status quo fill rates despite reduction in days of stock, improved inventory turns by nearly 7% year over year, coupled with 15% less in-bound lines.
As the world leader in stationary products, lighters and shavers Bic needed to develop an effective, detailed production plan to schedule nearly 1.3 billion pieces to be packaged annually. Working with JDA partner Spinnaker, they have significantly improved the schedule processes by breaking down production into separate models for different types of machines and the labor pool required for those machines. BIC improved asset utilization by 30%, providing an additional 40 hours per week of available packing time and can now schedule third party labor two weeks in advance versus a three-day moving schedule. That’s what makes them this year’s winner for Best Savings!
Walmart Mexico is receiving the Real Results Award for Teamwork following a large category management initiative. With operations encompassing 2,400 stores in Mexico – and growing by around 60 to 100 stores annually – the company has a complex store and floor footprint to manage. Walmart Mexico deployed JDA to synchronize teams and processes spanning 25,000 floorplans and 70,000 planograms. With improved forecast accuracy across all 25,000 floor plans, Walmart Mexico has decreased planning by 884 hours per year or 110.5 days of labor.
ThaiNamThip is a bottling company in Thailand under the Coca-Cola brand. It deployed JDA to replace its time-consuming paper-based processes, which required extensive labor to maintain and caused challenges in customers’ satisfaction. Since deploying JDA in February 2019, ThaiNamThip has already been successful with implementation and on the clear path for improvement of efficiency, cost, and customers’ satisfaction.
North American convenience store retailer RaceTrac has been a JDA customer for more than 20 years, so I’m especially delighted that they are being recognized for Best Results in North America. With JDA, RaceTrac has taken the guesswork out of space and floor planning and automated and streamlined the planogramming process for all 500 of its stores. RaceTrac has increased overall store profit, improved order compliance by 20% and reduced unauthorized inventory by 8%.
CEMEX is a global building materials company that provides high-quality products and reliable services to customers and communities in more than 50 countries. JDA is at the heart of CEMEX’s supply chain transformation, aimed at optimizing daily delivery execution and digitalizing its internal replenishment processes which were largely manual. They also improved on-time deliveries and customer satisfaction while decreasing manual labor, all of which attributed to their being recognized for Best Results in Latin America.
Congratulations to our winners as we celebrated their success at ICON this week!
