In 2024, Glow Lab, a fast growing small to mid-sized New Zealand health and beauty company operating across New Zealand and Australia, sought to upgrade its demand planning approach. With a growing product portfolio, evolving pricing strategies, and changing retailer requirements, the business aimed to move beyond spreadsheet-based processes toward a more structured and data-informed way of planning.
Historically, sales and demand planning relied heavily on Excel, which presented a number of challenges:
- Limited flexibility for scenario planning and performance analysis
- Reduced visibility into demand drivers at an account level
- Exposure to manual errors and version control issues
- A tendency toward more reactive decision-making
Adopting a New Approach
To support its next stage of growth, Glow Lab implemented CauSelf. The platform was selected for its flexibility and modelling capabilities, as well as its usability across different teams. It enabled the business to bring together inputs from Sales, Supply Chain, and Finance into a more consistent and encompassing planning framework, with forecasts developed at an account level and informed by both data and commercial context.
Outcomes
18 months on from implementation, Glow Lab has observed a number of improvements in its planning processes:
- Improved forecast accuracy, with both Bias and WMAPE trending in a positive direction, with regular model review processes helping to identify and address sources of forecast bias over time
- Greater alignment across Sales, Supply Chain, and Finance, supported by shared data and planning assumptions, feeding into a robust S&OP cycle
- Supply performance, particularly into Australia, has become more consistent, with fewer issues requiring escalation
- Readily available support from the CauSelf team allowed for tailoring and training, ensuring the business quickly gained traction following transition to the new tool