(BRK.A), (BRK.B)
Berkshire Hathaway’s McLane Co. Inc. is continuing its investment in analytics and performance tracking tools through the rollout of McLane Link, an online portal solution that provides retailers access to key performance and operational data including the ability to see order and delivery data by store and by item.
McLane Link also improves operational efficiencies by providing a web-based guide that gives retailers quick access to key metrics, the company said. Retailers can customize reports and resolve issues without needing to contact their McLane representatives, and reports can be viewed online or exported as Excel or PDF files.
Additionally, the scheduling feature allows each customized report to be emailed directly to the customer or any number of other company employees.
Other McLane Link features include:
• Service-Level Reporting. A detailed status report for all orders placed, received and en-route including the fill rate of each item as well as an overall service percentage.
• Delivery Reporting. A performance view of current and past delivery arrival times. A calendar feature allows for the review of delivery detail on a weekly, monthly or several month basis.
• Delivery Scheduling. A comprehensive directory of key account information for all retailer locations including billing cycle and mailing address. Retailers can view reroutes, load days and other scheduling information pertinent to each store location.
• Credits. An account of all credits issued by delivery drivers searchable by date range. Filtering can be applied to review specific locations, amounts or geographic details.
• Planograms. Corporate and store-level access to the latest planograms created from McLane’s Center for Category Innovation. Retailers are able to include their own store-level planograms and upload them directly into the McLane Link portal.
• Slice and Dice Report with Conditional Alerts. Each field can be reordered, removed or have column-level filtering, enhancing the user experience. Alerts can be added to notify retailers when specific conditions or thresholds have occurred.
Four retailers have already rolled out the solution and 10 more are scheduled to be in production by the end of November, the company stated. McLane Link is customized to match the look and feel of each customer’s branding strategy for a familiar user experience, and additional features requested by customers will be rolled out over the coming months.
“With McLane Link, our retailers can quickly locate the exact information they are looking for and customize a report specific to what is needed,” said McLane Vice President of Customer Technology Deon Johnson. “It’s exactly what our customers have asked for and just what they need, when they need it — a fast, simple and easy way to drive their business forward.”
© 2016 David Mazor
Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.