Ripple Foods Finds the Right Partner to Bring Visibility
The Challenge
Ripple Food looked for a software that would offer better budget and promotion analytics.
The Solution
Big Bang integrated NetSuite with BluePlanner and offered a great technical solutioning and recommendations through a high level of communication.
The Benefits
Real-time visibility on product tracking at the supplier and beyond. Forecasting capabilities for Ripple’s promotional spending budget.
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About Ripple Foods
Ripple Foods offers dairy-free, nutrition-rich plant-based protein. Free of allergens like dairy and soy, their beverages, shakes, and frozen desserts appeal to vegan, lactose intolerants, and gluten-free sensitivities. Ripple’s products are nutritiously high in protein, Vitamin D, calcium, potassium, and Omega-3s, and they are certified GMO-free. Compared to cattle or almonds, their pea protein milk leaves a smaller environmental footprint and tastes just as good.
Challenge: Better Analytics
As Ripple Foods grew, the team started to look for a software that would offer better budget and promotion analytics. Even though the tool they previously leveraged was great for promotion and planning, it was not made to pull reports. Doing the task manually in excel would take them a week or two. Following their research, they chose BluePlanner.
A Long-Time Relationship with Big Bang
Big Bang has been a long-time partner of Ripple Foods with over five years of NetSuite support, how-tos, report-building, setting up scripts and workflow, as well as bigger integration projects such as a journal into the approval process, and advanced custom reporting clean up.
The choice was clear: integrating Oracle NetSuite ERP with BluePlanner with the expert help of Big Bang. The consultant team created interfaces, set up the integration through Celigo, and helped solve any issues that arose.
The Benefits:
Real-Time Visibility
NetSuite, Ripple Foods’ financial system, manages the company’s inventory and transactions. The data is sent seamlessly through the integration to BluePlanner, their forecasting tool. The team has real-time visibility on product tracking with their suppliers and a good estimate of where the products are distributed.
Forecasting Capabilities
BluePlanner’s forecasting capabilities help the team decide what promotions to give their customers, adapted to different factors, including geography and seasonality. With the volume entered, they can put them up against the promotional calendar and set a trajectory against their monthly and annual spending budget. It was a complicated process when they had to do it by hand and relied too much on personal knowledge over shared learning.
“Because we are constantly changing what we are doing at the customer level, we can see how it’s impacting our monthly forecast for the future.”
– Sarah Pratt, Sales Planning Manager at Ripple Foods
The Big Bang Team
Technically Capable of Understanding and Speaking our Language
Ripple Foods’ team appreciated that there were no surprises thanks to the high level of communication from the Big Bang team. The customer was aware of the project’s steps, processes, and needs. Red flags were raised as they arose, and solutions were found quickly.
“Overall, it’s been a positive experience. That’s why we’ve maintained the relationship [with Big Bang] for five years. We’re happy with the quality of work, the responsiveness of the team, and the effort and skill that goes into building something complicated.”
“I appreciated that Big Bang took something complicated and said it in my own words. They were helping me instead of telling me how it should be. When I shared concerns or asked questions, I felt like I was a priority to them.”
– Sarah Pratt, Sales Planning Manager at Ripple Foods
Kevin OConnell, Director of Category Management at Ripple Foods, appreciated the Big Bang team’s communication skills. He recalls a discussion when the team recommended implementing a solution later. It was a complex, time-consuming engagement without substantial benefit to Ripple Foods and would have slowed down the whole project. Instead, it proved to be a competitive advantage for Ripple Foods.
Advice: Set Smaller Deadlines Internally
Sarah advises anyone starting a similar project to set smaller deadlines internally to avoid rushing things at the end when information is critical to move to the next step.
