Southern Glazer’s Wins Best Transportation Innovation

As we wrap up our annual Distributor Best Practices, Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits stood out in the Best Transportation Innovation category.

Transportation is one of the most important aspects of a successful distribution system. Without proper transportation, you can’t get your product where it needs to be.

For a distributor as large as Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits, it’s not always easy to keep things running smoothly. Working with over 1,600 suppliers and distributing over 11,000 brands, the company has faced several supply chain challenges over the years, including limitations related to tracking and monitoring the movement of goods from production facilities to distribution centers and ultimately to retailers and customers.

This lack of visibility had far-reaching consequences, as it impeded Southern Glazer’s’ ability to address disruptions promptly, leading to delivery delays that impacted customer satisfaction. That’s when they turned to Ryder to revamp their inbound transportation and implement RyderShare, a leading-edge visibility and collaborative logistics platform.

Instant Improvements in Transportation

This new transportation solution led to significant improvements in visibility, accountability and efficiency throughout the company’s supply chain. RyderShare has revolutionized Southern Glazer’s’ operations and collaboration with suppliers and carriers by offering real-time visibility.

Since partnering with Ryder, the company has seen a 50% increase in productivity, 2X labor efficiency savings, improved visibility of freight moving across their supply chain and an improved on-time performance rating of 98%. They were even able to optimize their freight spend by nearly 15% in the first year and an additional 8% in the second year.

“At Southern Glazer’s, we strive to provide best in class capabilities to our suppliers and customers,” says Diego Fonseca, vice president, supply chain and logistics at Southern Glazer’s. “To us, best in class transportation means great service, low costs, accountability and traceability. We are pleased that this innovation, in partnership with Ryder, has been able to deliver in these areas, driving improvement across the end-to-end supply chain.”

Due to the distributor’s increased visibility over their supply chain, Southern Glazer’s is now able to deliver to their customers in a timely manner. This has led to higher customer satisfaction, an increase in repeat orders and new business.

“The RyderShare Track and Trace Platform provides our warehouse and commercial teams with real-time visibility into purchase order data and delivery statuses, enabling proactive planning for receiving, smarter inventory prioritization and reduced risk of shortages, even when expedited shipments are required,” says Fonseca. “With more predictable inbound shipments and carrier self-scheduling, appointment rework has decreased significantly, unlocking greater throughput capacity during peak sales periods.”

Continued Success

According to Fonseca, the gains that Southern Glazer’s has received since implementing RyderShare have primarily enabled teams to reinvest time into historically under-resourced processes, resulting in greater inventory accuracy rather than direct labor cost savings.

“From a broader freight spend perspective, the Ryder solution has delivered nearly a 10% cost reduction since implementation by allowing us to utilize the best cost, service and technology partners to service our business,” Fonseca says.

Southern Glazer’s plans to continue to work with Ryder going forward to improve their processes and drive even greater results.

As new supply chain and transportation issues arise, it’s important to have a collaboration that works for your business to not only resolve challenges, but to successfully execute the right solutions for those challenges.

To read more about the winners of our annual Distributor Best Practices Awards, click here.

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