The Cocoa Trees tastes sweet success in eliminating workfl ow ineffi ciencies and improving business decisions with QlikView

In 2004, The Cocoa Trees found that its accounting system, which was designed for generating static reports and financial statements, and based on batch processing, became inadequate for the rapidly growing operations. They were unable to generate reports on inventory levels on-demand or in real-time. Twice a month, the warehouse supervisor had to physically inspect stocks to prepare an inventory expiry date report to monitor the shelf-life of these perishable items. It was time-consuming as each report took two days to complete, with inevitable errors. Service levels were unsatisfactory as the order fulfillment cycle took too long. Salespeople could not propose or confirm orders with customers immediately against inventory levels. On top of that, because of the lack of clarity on inventory, some salespeople circumvented the system by physically pre-packing stocks at the warehouse to reserve the stocks, leading to many internal conflicts.

The Cocoa Trees is the largest distributor and retailer of chocolate and confectionary products in the Asia Pacific region. A local success story, it started in 1991 with just 5 people, representing 2 brands. In 1999, it launched the popular The Cocoa Trees chocolate boutique stores in Singapore. Today, it has a portfolio of more than 35 internationally renowned brands such as Kraft (Toblerone, Milka, Daim, Cote d’Or) Masterfoods (M&M’s, Snickers, Mars), Ferrero Rocher, Herhseys, Cadbury and Nestle, and a distribution network that covers most of Indo-China, Southeast, North and Northeast Asia and as far west as India.