About the Client

Accelerating Business Performance 

This leading manufacturing company works its hardest to help customers gain access to its products in a seamless and sustainable way. By keeping a pulse on customer wants and needs, it can deliver value to them daily. 

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The Situation

Improving Operations and Business Performance

With its supply chain disrupted by the impact of the pandemic, the manufacturing company decided to undergo a supply chain transformation initiative to attain a competitive advantage. The goal? To improve operations and business performance. 

But undertaking a supply chain transformation initiative is no easy feat. It requires expertise in understanding supply chain best practices, leveraging the latest technologies, and the business context to develop the best plan for success. Because the company lacked the necessary in-house expertise and desire to complete the project within six months, looking for a full-time hire was out of the question. 

Likewise, taking the time to sift through several proposals from consulting firms would take too long. So the manufacturing firm decided to explore an alternative to traditional talent acquisition channels. 

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The Solution

Onboarding a Former Big Four Consultant 

After researching alternative hiring models, the manufacturing company learned about Graphite’s on-demand talent acquisition platform. The ability to find talent within 24-48 hours and the platform's robust network of 9,000+ experts piqued their interest. So the manufacturing company set up a meeting with Graphite to learn more. 

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On the call with an Account Executive (AE), the company learned more about Graphite's two-tiered vetting process, how it enabled the ability to find on-demand talent within 48 hours, on average, and how the platform worked. Outside of finding top talent, the company liked that it could manage and pay the expert in one platform. 

Excited by the prospect of kick-starting this project quickly and meeting its desired deadline, the company set up a subsequent meeting with the AE to discuss the project's scope. In this call, the company shared that it wanted an expert with strong analytical skills. Ideally, the selected candidate would also have a Big Four background.

Considering these requirements, the AE reviewed 191 expert profiles that matched the company's criteria. Of the 191 experts, the AE presented a shortlist of the top four candidates. Using Graphite's in-app messaging features, the company set up virtual meetings with each candidate to discuss their qualifications. 

Within a week of connecting with each expert, the company moved forward with a former EY consultant. The chosen candidate had extensive supply chain experience in addition to being a savvy data analyst. 

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The Result

Achieving a Successful Supply Chain Transformation

Before getting started, the AE invited the independent data analyst expert and the manufacturing company to a kickoff call with one of Graphite's Client Success Managers (CSM). The goal of the meeting was to ensure that everyone was aligned on the scope of work, identify measurements of success and deliverables, and answer any outstanding questions. 

With the kickoff meeting completed, the CSM set up subsequent meetings throughout the project's lifecycle to ensure the engagement's success. In turn, the expert completed their onboarding process with the manufacturing company. 

Once the expert had access to the company's system, they first set out to understand the company's current state. They worked on collecting all the necessary data across the company's system and mapping it in SQL server to extract insights from the analysis. 

To ensure that they reviewed every possible angle and identified every opportunity, the expert also exported the data from SQL Server to create a model, summarize the analysis, and crunch the numbers in excel. After completing this step, the expert used this information to create PowerPoint decks to present to leadership, highlighting: 

1. The current state of the company’s supply chains
2. Areas for improvement
3. Opportunities
4. Recommendations 

Using the expert's suggestions, the company moved forward with actioning out the tactics needed to improve business performance and operations. By implementing the changes, the company was able to see an improvement in its bottom line.

Pleased with Graphite's white glove service and ease of using the platform to communicate, manage, and pay the expert, the manufacturing company expressed its interest in leveraging the platform again for future engagements. More importantly, they looked forward to working with the independent expert again.

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