Case: Frederiksen Scientific

The solution was a customer matrix that segmented customers into four categories based on profit and sales volume. By combining customer data and ABC analysis, they created a simple but effective decision-making tool that highlighted which customers actually created value:

• Nurse/protect: High profit and high sales volume.

• Grow: High profit, low sales volume.   

• Develop: Low profit, high sales volume.  

• Turnaround: Low profit, low sales volume.

The customer segmentation framed the service level and resource allocation for the different categories and gave the company a holistic view that made it possible to remove an additional 1,000–1,500 products. These were "difficult items," Torben emphasizes, which could only be removed because of the new customer-centric strategy.  

When a Common Understanding of Value Arises 

By turning their supply chain around and starting with the customer, Frederiksen Scientific began to think commercially across the business - including in operational management. Employees began to understand the value of both customers and products. Additionally, they were better able to differentiate between them and understand cross-functional connections.

Specifically, they became able to: 

• Streamline resource use: Customers who were not profitable now had to pay extra for special items or change their behavior.  

• Reward their best customers: Their best customers received prioritized service and better prices on volume. 

• Grow healthily and strategically: Segments with high potential became the target for active upselling—there was money to be made here.
  

With the help of Inact, Frederiksen Scientific could now incorporate customer data directly into the optimization of the supply chain. In this way, they gained a data-based decision-making foundation that made the meeting between sales, management, and purchasing easier. 

Structure Becomes Strategy

With the new customer focus, Frederiksen Scientific began to see their entire supply chain as one coherent system -  not just as inventory and purchasing, but as a tool for targeting the market and the most value-creating customers.

However, there was one final step - to unite the entire organization around the commercial logic.  

Even though Torben and his team had created a data-driven structure, they knew that the change would only succeed if it was anchored in all departments. They recognized that "supply chain and purchasing could only get part of the way, not all the way, if there was no cross-functional collaboration."

Therefore, the team translated the new customer focus into a commercial rule set for customers and products that adapted the company's tactics to the different customer groups. They implemented the necessary restructuring so that the customer-centric strategy became reality in in all departments.

Here, Inact Now was central, as the platform gave the entire company a unified data overview that translated complex data into actionable opportunities daily. Slowly but surely, the customer-centric strategy began to spread - from commercial decisions to operational processes.