Gertrude Hawk Upgrades Sales and Operations Planning Utilizing John Galt

In 1936, Gertrude Hawk began making chocolates in the kitchen of her Dunmore, Pennsylvania home to help support her family. A new generation of chocolates lovers continues to be delighted by Gertrude Hawk Chocolates, which are now sold in more than 60 retail locations.

Gertrude Hawk sought a way to use its stored data to forecast accurately and gain control over inventory. Bruce Cottle, chief information officer (CIO) at Gertrude Hawk, knew it was time to automate the forecasting process to make it faster – to enable the company to capture rapidly changing seasonality across its outlets.

The Demand Management Engine – part of the John Galt Solutions Atlas Planning Suite – met Gertrude Hawk’s requirements for a solution that would allow it to capitalize on its previous SQL investment and have a central forecasting and demand planning solution that would provide visibility over the entire enterprise.

Gertrude Hawk is now able to quickly produce a monthly forecast, which is then aggregated into weekly scenarios for demand planning. “The forecasting technology built into the Demand Management Engine allows us to take into account factors like seasonality, and moving holidays, and adjust our demand replenishment plan accordingly,” said Cottle.

The John Galt Demand Management Engine is helping Gertrude Hawk build a stronger sales and operations planning process, because the company can now share the forecast and demand plan with all of its business units. By sharing financial information enterprise-wide, Gertrude Hawk can plan for a specific margin and use the Demand Management Engine to track how the demand replenishment plan is working toward accomplishing its targets.

The Demand Management Engine has integrated seamlessly with the legacy systems at Gertrude Hawk. “John Galt really helped make the implementation process as painless as possible,” said Cottle.