CVH Spirits uncorks success using supply chain apps

When Heineken acquired Distell Group in 2023, CVH Spirits established itself as an independent premium spirits company. Home of established whisky brands including Bunnahabhain, Deanston, and Tobermory, CVH Spirits needed to quickly stand up its own supply chain solutions before a transitional services agreement (TSA) with Heineken ended — and huge software licensing costs kicked in.

“When we were a subsidiary, our previous system was designed for a different business model — high volume, high market share, lots of distribution points,” explains Derek McCombe, Logistics and Supply Planning Manager at CVH Spirits. “Our market is more niche, more scattered, but really focused on the customer level.” The transition offered the opportunity to build new processes that met its specific needs better.

Rapid implementation based on best practices

CVH Spirits asked ValueMont to help them create supply and demand planning solutions. They used Anaplan Applications for Supply Chain, which are built on best practices and are fast to deploy.

“We had about four months to get our demand and supply planning system implemented,” recalls Demand Planning Manager Daryl Gobey. “Because of the modular nature of Anaplan, we could choose the pieces that worked for us. That was key to a quick implementation, which Anaplan could do better than anyone else.”

“We used the Anaplan project as a vehicle for improvement,” explains McCombe. “With Anaplan we could incorporate supplementary master data that wasn’t available in other solutions.” On the supply side, the company used Anaplan Apps to create production-line capacity planning, intercompany stock transfers, procurement planning for case goods supplied via a third party, and other processes. These were supplemented with custom modules for stock writeoffs, warehouse capacity planning, production budget performance, and more. The project scope incorporated operations in Taiwan and third-party production sites, and included master data administration, enhanced replenishment reporting, and a bulk reconciliation model. On the demand side, demand forecasting across all geographies and products is managed in Anaplan.

Enjoying the taste of success

With supply chain and demand planning on the Anaplan platform, CVH Spirits enjoys enhanced accuracy, visibility, and efficiency. “We targeted a 20% increase in forecast accuracy after implementing Anaplan, and we’re on track to achieve that,” Gobey says. “This means we have a more stable production plan and lower stock volumes without reducing customer service. It has positive impacts across the supply chain.”

“We’ve got full transparency on end-to-end supply chain planning,” McCombe notes, adding that this has a positive effect on procurement. “Improved Anaplan data quality drives purchase strategy confidence and improves input data to MRP.”

CVH Spirits also enjoys significant time savings with Anaplan. “We don’t need to extract data and build reports in spreadsheets to get stock days cover numbers,” McCombe cites as an example. “Anaplan provides live KPI reporting and monitoring, therefore nullifying the requirement to spend significant time building, refreshing, and linking independent spreadsheets.” Fast access to accurate KPIs gives the supply chain team more time for analysis and decision-making.

Creating its own supply and demand planning processes has transformed the way CVH Spirits sees its future. “With Anaplan we have a very sensitive compass to help us measure business performance,” says Julian Patton, Supply Chain Director. “And that will help us stay on course to achieve our strategic goals.”