Marie Management has helped 26 food and beverage focused entrepreneurs with their for-profit companies with operational systems and strategies that resulted in 30% of the companies new earnings from scaling to philanthropic arms of their own through building a corporate responsibility program, nonprofit, NGO or trust with us.

Food & Beverage Business Problems

Problem #1 Sourcing & Inventory: Food & Beverage companies have the distinct problem of meeting demand before it exists for more than 75% of its products. Which causes them to have to strategically source products, implement a thorough supply chain process and inventory management system that feeds all other professional teams required to position these products for sale both digitally and in-store. In the event that any one segment of this process is ineffective, customer sales and company bottom line will instantly, and in some cases regularly, reflect.  

Problem #2 Financial Forecasting: Food & Beverage companies have to run tighter front end management on financial constructs related to inventory, staff and overhead turnover. Far more factors create the outcomes of profit in this industry than many others in the event that companies do not produce, manufacture and distribute their own products. Therefore, a consistent checks and balances process is required to maintain financial inputs and outputs daily before it even becomes something managed by bookkeepers, accounts and chief financial officers.  

Problem #3 Communicative Systems: Food & Beverage companies operate with more than eight functions and departments within any given growing structure. These separate functions and departments normally play by their own rules on behalf of the company and seldom interact with one another through digital systems, operating systems or any form of communication. Oftentimes this creates internal breakdowns first, followed by external breakdowns that result in financial ruin. Therefore having integral systems that communicate from a cross-functional perspective, for all human capital, all departments and all systems to exist together is the ultimate solution in this industry.

• Grocers, convenience stores, liquor stores, liquor brands and restaurant clients originally contact us with struggles of workers comp issues and employee retention as a result.
• Grocers, convenience stores, liquor stores, liquor brands and restaurant clients found after our audits that the bigger concerns were labor costs and inventory loss while experiencing customer demand.
• Grocers, convenience stores, liquor stores, liquor brands and restaurant clients learned during our strategic planning session that concentration on competitor business models, resources and diversified income streams to combat losses.
• Grocers, convenience stores, liquor stores, liquor brands and restaurant clients benefited the most from internal infrastructure development of operating systems around human resources, supply chain, management processes and technological systems.

Identify the Ways Marie Management Can Solve Your Problems As a Food & Beverage Business Entrepreneur

After an initial assessment, audit, strategic plan development and consulting all inefficient processes, existing technology store systems and operating management systems required solutions in the following areas:

• POS Checkout: System that records sales and financial information, and that collects detailed customer and product related data.
• Self Checkout: Self-service POS station where customers ring up and pay for their purchases.
• Cash Management: System that controls the cash handling processes from POS to the back office, and to the bank.
• DSD: Direct Store Delivery System that supports the receiving of product distributed directly from manufacturers or suppliers on their own trucks, by-passing retail warehouse facilities.
• Labor Scheduling: Application that creates work schedules for employees and departments, based on defined parameters.
• Time & Attendance: System that is used to plan, monitor, and report employee’s work hours.
• Scale Management: System that links different weigh scales and labelers throughout the perishable departments in the store.
• Order Entry/Inventory Management: System that supports the process of inventory replenishment; an approach that combines perpetual inventory and reorder point calculations.
• Item Price Verification: Wireless handheld devices that are connected to POS and used to audit prices on the shelf.
• Shelf Space Management: System that helps manage the amount of shelf space allocated to each category, and to each product within the category.
• Loss Prevention: Auditing tool that analyzes data to identify irregular and fraudulent activities, in an effort to reduce lost profits.
• ESL: In Electronic Shelf Labels, LCD shelf tags that are linked to a backroom computer and POS, and that automatically display price changes.
• Learning Management (LMS): Computer-based training course software that delivers local or online content for new and existing employees.
• Forecasting Systems: Systems that project expected sales of products for given time periods.
• Shelf Tags/Signs: Software that is used for printing in-store tags and signs.
• Kiosks: Freestanding, interactive terminals that display products and information on a video screen; they typically use a touchscreen for customers to make selections.

Food & Beverage Businesses scale to invest their profits in programs that provide food to vulnerable populations.

With these implemented solutions our Food & Beverage companies become equipped to scale in order to implement their philanthropic arms with the following new operations and management processes in place:

• Forecasting
• Optimized Scheduling
• Time and Attendance
• Employee Self Service
• Learning Management
• Inventory control with Purchasing and Receiving
• Handheld inventory support
• Customer Management with Loyalty
• Employee Management
• Extensive Reporting
• Integrated eCommerce
• Integrated Quickbooks Accounting
• Daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly sales
• Best and worst selling products
• Customer buying patterns
• Daily sales tenders & deposits
• Self-Checkout Solutions
• Monitor cash registers, and in depth Cashier Analysis

Upon completion of streamlining and scaling the for-profit, Marie Management consultants began to build the philanthropic arm of the entrepreneurs choice (nonprofit, non-governmental organization, philanthropic arm, corporate responsibility program, private foundation, association or trust) with the following steps:

Step 1: Organizational Structure Development  

Step 2: Board & Business Network Development

Step 3: Committee Development

Step 4: Program Development

Step 5: Strategic Planning & Logic Model Development

Step 6: Fund Development

Step 7: Outreach Strategy & Development

Step 8: Department Development

Step 9: Operational Systems

Step 10: Marketing, Advertising & Sales Systems