In today’s world of paid reviews, consumers prefer honest recommendations from real people. The Samosa Party is one such QSR brand that has gained immense recognition through its positioning on food delivery applications and word-of-mouth, becoming widely known by most households as their go-to snack preference.
Throwing it back to 2015, Amit Nanwani, the founder of Samosa Party embarked on this journey with the sole intention of selling hygienic and authentic samosas, which came as a result of his constant battle between his eternal love for samosa and the struggle to find the ideal one that hit the right spots.
“From the beginning, the only goal was to detail and design samosas that were safe, hygienic, delicious, authentic, and free of all preservatives. All in one, to find a way to make the perfect samosas that involved least human intervention.”
~ Amit Nanwani, Founder
In the grand scheme of things, the journey appears to have been nothing but fruitful in terms of success and growth, having progressed smoothly from a side hustle to a successful full-time career.
| The need of the hour : Automated Demand Forecasting
While the Samosa Party made its entry in 2015, the first pandemic was when it became widely known as everyone was cooped up at home, craving safe and hygienic snacks. The timing was perfect, for a start-up, they were at the tipping point, with growth accelerating exponentially.
“We have realized there is a huge demand-and-supply problem when it comes to samosas. India also exports samosas to 140+ countries so there’s a big opportunity globally as well.”
~ Diksha Pande, Co-founder
In the beginning, everything progressed seamlessly with their manual forecasting system. However, with progress and a rise in demand, they began to feel the heat with demand fulfillment and customer satisfaction as demand levels started to fluctuate, items often became unavailable, and, to top it all off, they had direct competitors in the market who their customers preferred as an alternative.
“With the mission to take samosas to the world, the dependency for determining the right order demand became more critical, and although we tried several manual ways, the end result was inadequate.”
~ Ratnesh Thakur, Technology Lead
The integrated iPOS system did the basic job of recording incoming orders from all channels. But, it had no involvement in forecasting future demands, entailing the use of manpower.
With 45+ stores pan-India and multiple SKUs including 15 samosa varieties with condiments and accompaniments, manual-based indenting systems started to collapse as they ran out of stock on a daily basis, top-selling items up to 5 hours per day to be precise. During this period, Samosa Party incurred potential revenue losses of up to 25% which were caused by 30% stock-outs and also led to 20% inventory loss from overstocking and expiry. All of this was a result of their supply chain's ineffective planning at all levels, which kept their serviceability down by 65% monthly.
| On a pursuit to find the finest automated demand planning tool to sustain and expand growth.
Crest helped the Samosa Party recognize and evaluate that the key issue keeping them from making progress toward achieving their demand fulfillment goals was the lack of supply chain planning.
“We recognized their proficiency right away because they easily interpreted the problem that persisted using the depth of their technical expertise in supply chain and backing functional capabilities. A solution-based product that could help us bridge the gap as it was centered on solutions, focused on processes, and designed practically to solve all our supply chain problems.”
~ Amit Nanwani, Founder
Crest's streamlined processes have allowed the precise definition of the KRAs for the planners and sales managers of the Samosa Party. Up to 99% of the business constraints are now met by Crest, allowing the planner to concentrate on the development of the brand rather than dealing with new operational planning challenges. Maintaining quality and production control is made possible by having clear visibility into and an understanding of the functions and performance of each module.
“By implementing Crest, all planning-related decisions have been accurately and consistently automated, resulting in a 95% fill rate.”
~ Ratnesh Thakur, Technology Lead
Samosa Party’s revenue loss has substantially reduced to less than 5% and the stock-outs are now less than 3%. Additionally, there has been a considerable decline in product expiration and waste of up to 98%.
“We are now able to predict high demand periods and are ready to cater to any customer demands. It has a direct impact on the revenue readiness of a company and that's the value we see Crest unlocking for many companies in the future.”
~ Diksha Pande, Co-founder
