AmerCareRoyal (ACR) has been on an incredible journey since its first platform launch in 2014, expanding in scale and breadth to become an industry-leading platform.
The company's products are consumed throughout every segment of the North American foodservice industry, including large international restaurant chains, emerging regional organizations, local eateries, cafeterias and institutional caterers, as well as the general distributors and suppliers who serve them all. Leading brands such as Five Guys, Tim Horton's and Yum Brands, along with hundreds of others who serve and deliver at restaurants, trust ACR as their single-stream resource for the more than 6,000 disposable products they use to keep their business running smoothly.
“We have transformed from a regional company into one of the leading national suppliers of disposable products across 20 categories to the foodservice industry,” said Brett Bernero, ACR's chief operating officer. “We have an unmatched infrastructure and broad product portfolio, with over 6,000 product SKUs. Our current revenues are approximately $1 billion, and we have ambitious growth plans to triple this to $3 billion in about five years.”
As ACR Chief Information Officer Jeff DeSandre explains, what's especially noteworthy about the organization is that it is greater than the sum of its parts.
“The nine acquisitions we made to create ACR add up to less than our current revenue,” he explains. “The work that's being done here creates synergies. A big portion of this acquisitive growth has been organic, and I think it's really interesting that the sum of the components is less than our current revenue.”
The COVID-19 Pandemic and Unprecedented Supply Chain Challenges
It's well-known that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused disruption on a global scale, and ACR's supply chain is no exception. ACR leverages domestic manufacturing and international sourcing, making it a truly global supply chain, and therefore was significantly impacted by the pandemic.
But as Barnero points out, the company's supply chain problems weren't caused solely by the pandemic. In fact, ACR was experiencing growing pains even before the pandemic. As Barnero puts it, those challenges included bringing together several smaller business units and working them together to create synergies.
“The pandemic was one part of a series of unprecedented global supply chain disruptions and how do we get through that,” he explains. “The challenge after that was not just getting through the day-to-day of the pandemic, but actually starting to think beyond the pandemic on a different path and how do we come out of it stronger and more stable.”
“We knew that everyone would come out of the pandemic at the same time, some in a worse situation than others. Our goal was to come out stronger, fix our systems and processes, and have different workforce capabilities.”
ACR's transformation
As DeSandre explains, ACR's transformation began with a change in its leadership team, with the ultimate goal being to create a solid foundation on which to build.
“We had to make sure the foundation was right, which meant making sure there was no noise and that the foundation was working properly,” Desandre explains. “It's like gutters on a house. If you put in new gutters, no one notices, but if they're not working, you notice.”
As a result, ACR worked with OpenSystems to develop a fully managed SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) SD-WAN solution. “This laid the foundation and gave us one less noise to worry about,” DeSandre explains. “This technology foundation gave us time to focus on other important digital drivers, like master data.”
As Desandre explains, security is an ongoing consideration. “We're always thinking about security. We need to focus on security on a regular basis,” he comments. With this in mind, ACR partnered with Ontinue Services, the managed detection and response (MDR) division of OpenSystems, to help uncover issues in real time. Powered by AI, MXDR elegantly combines the best of MDR with assessment and prevention.
From there, DeSandre worked with ERP supplier VAI and its S2K platform to develop the API layer for ACR.
“While our ERP system may not be from a major supplier, the architecture of the system and our great partnership with VAI have enabled us to quickly understand and address deficiencies that may exist in any ERP system.”
“The flexibility of the S2K platform is a real differentiator for us, especially as it allows for continuous optimization within the warehouse, which is really important.”
The final piece was a trusted managed services partnership that provided ACR with strong technical resources and the ability to scale quickly. For this partnership, ACR teamed up with ProgrammersIO (PIO), which provides high-quality global development resources. “PIO provided us with technically strong resources to support the S2K platform. Their commitment and quality of work is outstanding. They are a valuable member of our IT team,” says DeSandre.
With this foundation in place, ACR could now look to future projects. Since the transformation began, ACR has been working on three major projects: Unity (an ongoing integration project), Spotlight (a project focused on commercial optimization), and Rubik (a supply chain continuous improvement initiative).
Project Rubik is part of ACR's supply chain and back-end operations transformation initiative, Barnello explained.
“Rubik started with network design and optimization, inventory management, and how we could create efficiencies to come out of the pandemic,” he explains. “We had high inventory levels, low service rates, high backorders, and split orders where customers were not picking up the same order from different locations at the same time. This was creating pain and complexity for our customers.”
As part of its strategy, ACR worked with its partners to create a sustainable roadmap. “We assembled a large cross-functional team that included IT, sales, finance and operations to execute on that plan.”
Supply Chain Partners
As Barnello explains, ACR has worked with partners across the supply chain, including GAINSystems and 3GTMS transportation management systems.
GAINSystems is ACR's planning partner, a partnership that has been going on for several years, and they use it for supply and demand planning. “Not only are they used for our planning software and all the inventory and operational policies that go with it, but they're also branching out into network design,” Barnello comments. “We see great value in having a single partner that has both the planning capabilities and the operational policies and can help us design and run simulations and optimizations.”
Meanwhile, 3GTMS provided ACR with visibility across its transport network.
“What they've really done is given us the visibility and the data to effectively manage our outbound shipments, understand where we're winning, where we're losing and really track that,” Barnero added.
The Importance of Data and Data Visibility
In considering ACR's data strategy, DeSandre emphasized the importance of a clean stream of master data that was easily accessible in near real time. This is where ACR's partnership with Celonis, a global process mining technology leader, came in handy.
“Our work with Celonis is a core part of our data strategy, and we're now moving towards having all of our data in one place within Celonis. We're just starting to leverage the potential, and I think management is just starting to understand the power of that data model.”
One example of this success is ACR's collaboration with Emporix and Avatria to implement a new digital commerce platform that enables clients to leverage insights and ultimately drive better outcomes. The product is known as the 1ACR Portal.
“The new portal has just gone live, and the exciting thing is that there are no point-to-point interfaces. All the clean information in Celonis is syndicated into the portal, which is what makes us unique. We are getting closer to the stage where we can syndicate transactional data and use it across various systems.”
As DeSandre explains, the ultimate goal is to achieve a single truth with minimal manipulation.
“There are still shortcomings in that not all of the necessary data is tracked in master data as part of the ERP,” he adds. “To rectify this and allow for change as ACR continues to evolve, we have modified the ERP to support non-native master data and allow the ERP to act as the system of record when required.”
ACR's Bright Future
As ACR continues to grow through acquisitions, the message going forward is one of continued partnership, and transformation will continue to evolve through projects like Unity, Rubik and Spotlight.
“I don't think this is the end,” commented Barnero. “This is really just the beginning for us. As we continue to acquire new business, new geographies, new customers, we will continue to innovate our network. We will also continue to leverage data and digital transformation in the spend cube and procurement space.”
Going forward, ACR will continue to drive innovation through its ongoing transformation projects, as DeSandre concludes.
“In terms of supply chain capabilities, I feel like we're pretty much at the best level. But in terms of commercial processes, pricing strategies, how we handle rebates and invoices, how we handle the commercial side of things for customers, I think we've still got a year or two to go before we're at the best level. So I think that's where our focus will be.”
“We have very strong leadership in the company right now, so the future for me is about continuing the great work we’ve done over the last three years,” he concludes, “bringing it all together and continuing to drive our supply chain optimization project with Rubik and our commercial optimization project with Spotlight.”
