From data to decision: how to build a 360° view of your foodservice business

Claire Brunaud
Jan 29
3 min read

Running a Foodservice business today is no longer just about achieving revenue targets.

It's about understanding where performance really comes from , what weakens it, and above all, how to activate it sustainably.

For many Sales Departments, one observation comes up regularly: the data exists, but the overall view is lacking. The figures are there, scattered across disparate tools, files, and reports.

And when a quick decision is needed, the data does not always inform the action .

When the proliferation of foodservice data obscures the interpretation of performance

Sell-in, sell-out, panels, financial data, logistics information…

Each source provides useful insight. But taken in isolation, none tells the complete story of the business.

Sell-in allows us to track sales trends, but says nothing about actual consumption.

Sell-out reveals what actually leaves the warehouses, without always explaining the upstream trade-offs.

The panels offer a market view, often disconnected from the reality on the ground in the Foodservice industry.

Financial and logistical data, however, frequently arrive too late in the analysis.

The Sales Department has more data than ever before , but is struggling to build a consolidated, reliable and actionable interpretation.

The real challenge for Sales Departments: moving from reporting to decision-making

The problem is not the lack of figures.

The problem is the inability to simply cross paths with them.

Without a comprehensive perspective, it becomes difficult to answer questions that are nevertheless essential:

What proportion of sell-in growth is actually consumed?
Where do the discrepancies lie between sales performance and reality on the ground?
Which customers, channels or product ranges create value… and which ones destroy it?
What levers should be activated first to secure the objectives?

Lacking a clear answer, decisions too often rely on partial analyses or intuitions. Management becomes reactive, sometimes defensive.

The 360° vision: a strategic necessity in the foodservice business

Building a 360° view of the Foodservice business is not about piling up additional indicators.

It's about connecting the data together , to move from a siloed approach to a global management approach.

A 360° view allows us to connect:

commercial performance (sell-in),
the reality on the ground (warehouse exits),
the market context (panels),
the financial and logistical impacts.

This cross-referencing transforms data into a strategic lever. It is no longer simply a matter of observing past performance, but of understanding its mechanisms and anticipating decisions.

The central role of sell-out in overall reading

In Foodservice, sell-out data, and more specifically warehouse exit data, occupies a key place in this 360° vision.

It represents the meeting point between commercial strategy and actual usage. It allows us to verify whether the growth promised is indeed growth consumed, whether promotions are actually stimulating the market, and whether product ranges meet the expectations of end customers.

Without this building block, the vision remains incomplete. With it, the other data finally takes on its full meaning.

From a siloed organization to cross-functional management

One of the major obstacles to a 360° vision is organizational.

Sales, category, finance, or supply chain teams often work with their own tools and metrics.

Cross-functional management requires a common foundation.

A tool capable of centralizing data, harmonizing it, and making it readable for all levels of decision-making.

This is where the SaaS approach changes the game.

SaaS as a decision catalyst

A SaaS tool dedicated to Foodservice management makes it possible to overcome the limitations of Excel files and fragmented reporting.

By centralizing sell-in, sell-out, panel data, and financial indicators, it offers a unified view of performance. Indicators are calculated automatically, comparisons are facilitated, and discrepancies are made visible.

For the Sales Department, this means:

a clear and shared vision of actual performance,
Decisions based on facts, not feelings.
an increased ability to prioritize commercial actions,
a strengthened alignment between strategy and field execution.

This is precisely the logic behind KaryonFood: transforming raw data into business decisions, by removing the distortion between what is sold, stored and actually consumed.

From data to decision: a change of approach

Building a 360° vision is not just about technology.

It is also a change in managerial approach.

Data is no longer used to justify the past, but to guide the future.

It becomes a tool for dialogue between teams, a support for prioritization and a performance accelerator.

For Sales Departments, it is a powerful lever to regain control over the complexity of Foodservice and to manage growth with more serenity.

Do you want to see in concrete terms how to build a 360° view of your Foodservice business from your sell-in and sell-out data?