Executive Headhunters
Food supply chain and wholesale distribution
The client is a well-established regional fish supplier serving multiple independent fishmongers and food service customers. The business operates in a fast-moving, perishable goods environment where order accuracy, timing, and stock visibility are critical. As demand increased, the company’s largely manual processes began to constrain growth and operational efficiency.
Limited order intake capacity
All customer orders were taken manually by phone during standard business hours. This tied up experienced sales staff with repetitive order processing tasks and prevented customers from placing orders outside office hours, resulting in missed opportunities and constrained revenue growth.
Inefficient stock management
Stock levels across multiple fishmongers were tracked manually using whiteboards in each location. This approach:
Provided no real-time or centralised view of inventory
Made it difficult to plan purchasing and distribution effectively
Increased the risk of stockouts or over-ordering in a highly perishable supply chain
Lack of scalability
Any increase in order volume would have required additional sales or admin staff, increasing costs and reducing margins.
A multi-layered AI solution was designed and implemented to automate both order intake and stock visibility, while integrating seamlessly with existing systems.
AI voice agents were deployed to take customer orders by phone 24 hours a day, replicating the natural conversation style of experienced sales staff.
WhatsApp agents were introduced to allow customers to place orders via messaging at their convenience.
Both channels were fully integrated into the company’s existing order management software, ensuring orders flowed directly into operational systems with no manual re-keying.
The agents were trained to recognise buying patterns and intelligently upsell relevant products, promotions, and seasonal offers.
A video-based AI system was designed to read handwritten stock levels from whiteboards across multiple fishmonger locations.
The system automatically captured, interpreted, and aggregated stock data into a single, real-time dashboard.
This gave management instant visibility of inventory levels across the entire operation for the first time.
24/7 ordering without additional headcount
Customers were able to place orders at any time, increasing convenience and capturing demand outside traditional business hours — without hiring additional staff.
Improved sales productivity
Sales staff were freed from routine order processing and redeployed to higher-value activities such as new business development, relationship management, and upselling.
Real-time inventory visibility
Ownership gained a consolidated, live view of stock across all locations, enabling:
Better purchasing decisions
Reduced waste and spoilage
Improved fulfilment reliability
Scalable growth platform
The business now has an automated, scalable infrastructure that can support higher order volumes and future expansion without a corresponding increase in overheads.
By combining AI-driven order automation with real-time stock intelligence, the client transformed a traditionally manual, resource-intensive operation into a scalable, data-driven supply chain — improving efficiency, unlocking growth, and future-proofing the business.
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