Most wholesalers wait until the fall/winter to embark on reroutes to avoid any significant projects during the busy summer months.
While this makes sense on paper, there are significant flaws in the logic.
- Fall has become the busiest time of year for management with industry conventions, supplier meetings & ABPs, and personal vacations/family obligations. This will limit your ability to meet & plan as a team.
- Holidays interrupt design & implementation windows which push projects back several months, limiting the impact of any seasonal adjustment in your routes.
- Outside service providers (consultants (shameless plug), routing experts, truck vendors, etc.) are booked up with other clients.
- Any delays throughout the project push implementation closer to Memorial Day, limiting your room for error.
We believe summer has become an ideal window to take on a reroute & restructure project for the following reasons:
- While the street-level employees are at full capacity, management is typically around and more available to meet & develop new strategies for the reroute.
- Implementing at the end of Summer (right after Labor Day) allows for the maximum amount of time to pass over slower months for the new routes to burn in before business ramps up again the following Spring. This also maximizes the seasonal impact of your new routes.
GENERAL TIME (CALENDAR WEEKS) REQUIRED TO COMPLETE A “TYPICAL” REROUTE PROJECT
PHASE 1 – PREPARATION & PLANNING // 1 – 2 WEEKS
Define project goals, select project teams, develop project timelines, update account master data, collect service times per activity in the account, etc.
PHASE 2 – STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT // 2 – 8 WEEKS
Define new service policy, sales go-to-market strategy, delivery methodology & service times. All this needs to be finalized for every account before routing can begin.
PHASE 3 – REROUTING // 8 – 12 WEEKS
Routing is the manifestation of your strategy. However long you think routing will take you, double it. Something always goes wrong and you want to build in enough time to build quality routes for delivery, sales & merch.
PHASE 4 – INTERNAL & EXTERNAL NOTIFICATION // 3 – 5 WEEKS
Communication is the most important step. Depending on the level of change and the number of accounts impacted, the time required to complete this step will vary.