Client Story: PFD Food Services
PFD Food Services (PFD) is an icon in the Australian food distribution space, supplying a wide range of customers with food products and supplies. A long-time client of the firm, the relationship started with the audit team, but quickly expanded when Chief Information Officer Richard Cohen was introduced to Sudha Viswanathan and the Digital and Data Solutions (DDS) team. Richard recalls, “Pitchers and PFD have had a long-standing relationship. I was asked to attend a meeting about an opportunity around data and data analytics, and that’s how it all started.” But, like many things in business, it wasn’t linear. It was almost a year and a number of conversations after that initial meeting before the teams began working on their first project together.
Building a strong partnership
Their collaboration began with a small proof of concept focused on customer service reporting. Each week, over 400 reports were being manually compiled and sent to customers. Identified as an opportunity for improvement, the challenge became ‘how can we create an environment that is more effective and efficient for customers to access their data’. The solution? Automated reporting that saved time, resources and gave customers more autonomous data access.
This successful project was the catalyst for what is now a five year partnership. As Richard reflects, “It launched from that one activity, which we had great success with, to identifying more and different ways we can work together to drive improvements – here’s another challenge, how can you help? And we really cut across almost every operational part of the business since.”
Watch our story, and find out how Sudha Viswanathan and his Digital and Data Solutions team from Pitcher Partners has helped Richard Cohen and the PFD team create a data-driven culture within this icon of the Australian food distribution industry.
Cultural alignment and foundation of trust
The success of this partnership can be attributed to the strong professional relationship between Richard and Sudha. Both emphasise the importance of trust, transparency and open communication in their collaboration. Richard describes their relationship as “very transparent, very open and honest. There’s lots of trust. The way we have structured the nature of the relationship is as a partnership. Pitcher Partners is an extension of our team. So, when Sudha and the Pitcher Partners team engage with PFD staff it’s almost as if they are part of PFD which is really positive.”
Having teams on the same page is crucial to driving mutual success and that’s something that Sudha acknowledges. “We all have a similar mindset – you need to be accountable and have clear expectations. When you do good work, it’s acknowledged and that goes across our team, and the PFD team. There’s really great accountability and trust.” This model has meant the DDS team can really understand the business more broadly, making space for a more opportunistic approach to challenges and potential for improvements. Taking this entrepreneurial approach has led to more impactful business improvements and built a strong foundation for future success.
Focused on client solutions
As their partnership evolved, the teams worked together on various projects that tackled client-centred challenges like operational KPI reporting, and driver logbook management to ensure safety compliance. The improvements in these areas provided better visibility into warehouse operations, enhanced data analytics, and ensured compliance with national vehicle regulations.
Each of these projects has been the result of identifying a challenge and being driven to find a tailored solution that not only helps the business, but the clients they serve. This mutual focus on keeping the client at the centre both reinforces cultural alignment and fosters innovation that has been crucial to project success so far. The flexibility this approach provides is something that Richard appreciates, “Sudha and I have conversations to figure things out without a solution in mind, and it develops into a cohesive kind of solution. It’s allowed us to be really flexible and nimble with how we’ve operated and deliver the outcomes we’ve needed to support the business.”
Looking ahead
PFD Food Services has ambitious goals for the future, including building a foundational data analytics environment to support growing data requirements. With the continued support of Pitcher Partners, PFD aims to leverage data for business improvement over the next several years. Richard states, “The requirement and the need for our data is just going to grow and grow. We’ve got to make sure we’ve got that foundation right.”
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