Bluedrops, a leading wholesaler of high-quality products for swimming pools, wellness, and water treatment, has successfully weathered the post-COVID wave by using Power BI. This has allowed them to use customized reports to obtain efficient sales and inventory management.
During the pandemic, Bluedrops overcame challenges and managed to take their business to new heights by harnessing the power of Power BI. With four dashboards providing financial KPIs, inventory management, and sales performance, Bluedrops uses Power BI to streamline their operations.
Growth due to COVID-19 pandemic
Bluedrops has experienced strong growth as a liaison partner between pool manufacturers and pool builders in Benelux and northern France. This growth was due to the growing demand for swimming pools and wellness products during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their services include providing quality materials and equipment for the construction and installation of swimming pools.
Partly due to the strong expansion of the team, it was more difficult for Bluedrops to keep an overview of the business. Therefore, in collaboration with Sonical, they implemented a business intelligence project to provide customized reporting to warehouse employees, salespeople and management.
Currently, Bluedrops uses four Power BI dashboards for financial KPIs, efficient inventory management and driving sales.
Sales Dashboard
Sales is a crucial role in Bluedrops’ business. It is essential to support the sales department with clear and up-to-date insights. Therefore Bluedrops provides its salespeople with insightful dashboards, starting with an overview of the sales figures. From there, they can analyze the data in detail.
Benefits for salespeople:
- Access to sales dashboards anytime and anywhere, both in the office and on the way to the customer (using the Power BI Mobile app).
- Maintaining an overview at the customer, regional, and product level (even with an assortment of > 5,600 products).
- Time efficiency while preparing customer meetings.
- Early detection of evolutions, trends, and issues at the customer, regional, and product level.
Through the use of sales dashboards, we aim to improve the quality and efficiency of our salespeople. This enables Sales Managers to:
- Make informed strategic choices: which regions should we focus on expanding?
- Overview of salespeople performance: which team members need coaching/support?
- React faster to changing circumstances: are there any products that are suddenly performing exceptionally well/poorly?
Optimization of inventory management
Bluedrops owns a warehouse of 2000 m² and uses a Power BI dashboard to optimize inventory levels and rotation. In the following paragraphs, we will describe the three different functions that Bluedrops uses during its analysis.
Using the “In Stock” function on the Power BI dashboard, the management team can quickly see which products are still in stock for the next 30 days.
By using this function, they can easily determine which products need to be ordered soon to prevent shortages. The tipping point is set at 30 days, which provides the most accurate picture.
At Bluedrops, suppliers are grouped based on delivery costs and number of orders, which provides valuable insights into the efficiency of different suppliers and the purchasing team. In this way, Bluedrops can select their suppliers based on cost, quality, and reliability, resulting in better decisions and a more efficient procurement process.
The product function allows you to query specific products and check their availability, as well as track their sales performance. If a product is out of stock, this can be reported to the stock employees so they are aware of the situation. This is important to maintain customer satisfaction and the company’s image. Additionally, this information can be shared with salespeople to notify customers of any delays or alternative options.
The Benefits
Suppliers
Better planning their production plan and delivery schedule
Customers
Their products delivered
on time
Sales
Avoiding missing sales opportunities.
Warehouse
Control inventory and available warehouse space.
Finance Reporting Accelerator
Bluedrops has not only a sales and procurement department but also a finance team that focuses on all financial aspects of the company. The team uses our finance accelerator to optimize and speed up their activities. This enables them to better monitor the financial health of the company and take proactive action to improve it.