Web-based benchmarking and reporting tool delivers immediate, customized reporting of key company and industry metrics for the unique needs of foodservice distributors.
Windham, NH, August 31, 2015 - Dynamic Benchmarking, a provider of customized online benchmarking and reporting solutions, is pleased to announce the launch of a suite of benchmarking surveys for the International Foodservice Distributors Association (IFDA). This suite of web-based surveys and resulting interactive reports deliver valuable insights into the operations of IFDA members and provide a means for developing best practices and improvements at participating companies.
As a trade group, IFDA provides research and education for its members as well as advocacy on a federal level in the legislative and regulatory process. IFDA members operate more than 800 distribution centers in the U.S. and beyond, representing annual sales of more than $125 billion.
“Foodservice distributors serve a wide variety of customers including restaurants, hospitals, colleges and universities, and even oil drilling rigs,” said Toni Salmi, director of education and research for IFDA. “This is an industry that consistently seeks improvements and efficiencies, and measuring performance and best practices through industry benchmarking is an important tool IFDA provides to its members.”
Towards that end, IFDA contracted with Dynamic Benchmarking to create a Safety and Risk Survey to track and compare workplace safety metrics and preventative measures being implemented at companies participating in the benchmarking. The results of this new survey help reveal best practices for safe operations amongst foodservice distributors as well as identifying operational aspects that make foodservice distributors unique from other food distributors such as those serving retail grocery stores.
“Not only can our members use custom filters to compare specific data points against a subset of their peers while maintaining complete confidentiality, they can also see where they stand against the industry as a whole,” said Salmi.
In addition to the Safety and Risk Survey, IFDA has also launched two other surveys using Dynamic Benchmarking. The Operations Quarterly Benchmark Survey focuses on the efficiency of warehouse operations, measuring inbound and outbound deliveries, returns, shorts, and mispicks to help reduce errors and increase productivity. As a longstanding IFDA survey, it offers timely quarterly results to participants on key warehouse and delivery metrics.
“Dynamic Benchmarking makes it possible for us to offer more and better data than we had with previous versions of this survey,” says Salmi. “Not only can our members use custom filters to compare specific data points against a subset of their peers, they can also see where they stand against the industry as a whole.”
Another new IFDA survey instrument — The IFDA Sales Force Benchmarking Survey — allows IFDA members to input data points about the performance of their Distributor Sales Representatives (DSRs). This study was created by IFDA’s Sales and Marketing Leadership Committee to track specific attributes of top performing DSRs. This includes basic demographics as wells sales metrics such as number of SKUs per order and per quarter, number of accounts, and industry mix of accounts as well as rating individual sales representatives on product and industry knowledge, selling skills, and more.
“DSRs are our members’ first line of contact with their customers,” explains Salmi. “Our Sales and Marketing Committee wanted to give our members a tool to collect best practices so they could improve upon the sales process.”
"For an association whose members place a great deal of value on industry data, the move to Dynamic Benchmarking has helped make collecting, comparing and reporting on key data points much easier and quicker than in the past, a huge member benefit," says Betsy Delfosse, Co-founder and Chief Operations Officer of Dynamic Benchmarking.
“The new reporting features offered by Dynamic Benchmarking make it easy for our members to create quality reports quickly,” Salmi said. “This is a great tool when it comes to making executive presentations or simply getting a read on your company’s performance in a particular area or against a specific industry segment.”
ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL FOODSERVICE DISTRIBUTORS ASSOCIATION (FDA)
The International Foodservice Distributors Association (IFDA) works to help foodservice distributor members succeed. Our primary constituents are foodservice distributors found across North America and internationally, including over 800 leading broadline, system and specialty distributors representing annual sales of more than $125 billion. These companies help make the food away from home industry possible, delivering food and other related products to restaurants and institutions — from the local pizzeria or burger shop to your favorite Italian restaurant or white tablecloth establishment, from nursing homes and hospitals to military mess halls and school cafeterias. IFDA provides research, education opportunities, and business forums to its members that can make them more competitive. IFDA also provides important representation on Capitol Hill, sharing the perspective of foodservice distributors with lawmakers and regulatory agencies to shape the legislative and regulatory process. See more at: http://www.ifdaonline.org.
ABOUT DYNAMIC BENCHMARKING
Dynamic Benchmarking is a New Hampshire-based startup that delivers real-time benchmarking and data analysis solutions with the features and capabilities of custom software in a format that is easy to use and quick to deploy. Founded by a team of women entrepreneurs, Dynamic Benchmarking combines powerful, web-based technology with unparalleled industry expertise and customer care to provide best-in-class, peer-to-peer data comparison for small business, associations, large enterprises and any organization looking to tap into the knowledge of the crowd. Dynamic Benchmarking builds web-based solutions that are flexible, scalable and allow for meaningful comparison of financial and operational performance in a dynamic and interactive manner. For more information, please visit http://www.dynamicbenchmarking.com.
