A distribution management system for food distribution across Tanzania

Running distribution across a national footprint puts pressure on three things at once: who you extend credit to, where stock actually is, and how the field team plans its day.

• 1Customer and credit control - a distribution business carries credit risk across a large customer base, which needs scoring, capping, and accounting treated as one connected problem rather than three spreadsheets.
• 2Product and distribution management - stock, pricing, and movement across the distribution network need a single system of record instead of depot-level records that drift apart.
• 3Field sales operations - a sales team working on the road needs route planning and the ability to take pre-orders where they are, not after they get back to an office.

We built a distribution management system around the three areas above, delivered as custom software with IoT and mobile components.

• Customer management - customer records with credit scoring, credit capping, and the accounting treatment that follows from them, so credit decisions and their financial consequences live in one place.
• Products and distribution management - product and distribution data managed centrally, giving the business one view of what it holds and where it is moving.
• Sales team operations management - route planning for the field team, with pre-order capability so orders are captured at the point of the customer conversation.
• Ongoing delivery - the engagement has run continuously since March 2022, with the system extended as the business has grown rather than handed over and left.