Client Stories

Blue Diamond Growers goes live with UpClear BluePlanner

Did you know almonds grow on trees?  

Almonds are actually the seed of a fruit, or drupe, which grows on trees that are a glorious sight in bloom

When you think almonds or an almondbased products, chances are you are thinking of Blue Diamond, the largest processor and marketer of almonds in the world. Based in California where almonds are the largest food export, Blue Diamond Growers is an agricultural cooperativeserving over 3,500 almond growers. The almond crop of California is valued at over $1 billion and Blue Diamond Growers produces 80% of that supply.  Almonds are in fact the sixth largest food export for the United States as aside from California, almonds can only be found in certain regions of the Mediterranean. 

Blue Diamond Growers was founded in 1910, and has become the global leader in processing and marketing with innovations ranging from the technological to the product lines themselves. In line with current health and heart-focused trends, almonds have been labeled a super food and Blue Diamond has been turning out products to meet consumer demands and special dietary needs. There is Almond Breeze, a dairy alternative to milk, Nut-Thins their answer to a gluten-free cracker, as well as a plant based protein powder, in addition to their core offering of nut mixes, with flavors as creative as Siracha, Habanero BBQ, and Wasabi.  

 

What brought Blue Diamond Growers and BluePlanner together?  

BluePlanner and Blue Diamond Growers’ meet cue was not just over similar names, although they do sound good together.  Typical key criteria for a manufacturer when selecting a TPM vendor is robust functionality, speed to market, and ease of use. Another key factor that feeds into the decision making process, and eventual success of the implementation, is the culture of the project team. Given the new breed of challenges faced this year it was always going to be important to find ways to stay collaborative and flexible while still reaching key milestones.  Leveraging platforms to optimize cross-team communication, conducting training with interactive quizzes, and a healthy amount of good humor and banter all contributed to a successful deployment kick-off. 

I believe it is this collaborative culture between Blue Diamond and UpClear which has been the key metric of success for this project to date, and instrumental in getting us live with planning in such short order.

– Owen Westcott, Senior Client Success Manager, UpClear 

 

Managing Kickoff, with all Teams Remote

Aside from the very first kick off meeting in early March, the entire deployment project was run remotely.  Both teams showed flexibility and agility to communicate effectively throughout, including the end-users who were all trained on large video-conference sessions. 

“We believe UpClear’s BluePlanner solution is a perfect fit for Blue Diamond Growers. Ease of use and speed of deployment were two key reasons why BluePlanner was the clear choice. Three months after our kickoff meeting we’re already training our Sales team and Broker partners, and we will be ”live” in less than 6 months. The support we’ve gotten so far has been tremendous, advising us on best practices every step of the way.  We’re confident we’ll see results in better fiscal year planning, visibility of customer investment levels/profitability, and ultimately, trade efficiency.” 

-Corby Drewes, Senior Manager of Sales Operations, Blue Diamond Growers 

What’s Next 

UpClear’s  deployment of BluePlanner with Blue Diamond Growers has brought the team to live status with Planning. With that segment completed, Blue Diamond is well on their way to the further stages of integration, settlement and developing robust analytics reports. Celebrating with some custom co-branded swag and some beers delivered from across the country, the teams are on a fantastic track.  

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