Your Delivery Routes Might Be Fine. Your Network Might Not Be.
Layla Shaikley [ Head of Product & Cofounder, Wise Systems ]
If you distribute beverages, you already know Encompass. Here’s what most operators don’t know: the biggest cost lever isn’t your daily routes– it’s your network.
Most beverage distributors run daily routing through Encompass, and Wise Systems integrates with Encompass on both fronts– day-of execution routing, and the strategic network layer above it. That means a plan built in Strategic Planner flows straight into daily execution, no matter which system handles the driving day.
Here’s what most operators overlook: the biggest cost lever isn’t the day-of routing decisions– it’s the network above it. The layer that decides which depot serves which customer, how territories are drawn, and how often each account gets visited.
For a lot of operators, that strategic layer runs on legacy, on-prem territory planning software, or a set-it-and-forget-it annual reroute built by consultants. Some tools are heading toward end-of-life entirely, forcing a decision under deadline pressure.
What this actually costs you
When your network is out of balance, it doesn’t show up as one big obvious problem. It shows up everywhere at once: multiple reps and trucks converging on the same account in the same parking lot, one depot running near capacity while another has room to spare, and delivery, sales, and merchandising routes drifting out of sync with each other.
Daily routing can only work with what the network gives it. A static setup sequences the stops you already have– it won’t touch which depot a customer belongs to or how often they’re visited. Even a fully dynamic setup, which can shift which trucks cover which stops day to day, doesn’t solve the deeper problem: the multi-week service policy and territory decisions that only get made at the network level. If the foundation is wrong, no amount of day-of adjustment catches up to it.
The old fix was a once-a-year fire drill: pull a consultant, run the numbers in Excel, hand the plan to delivery, get pushback, hand it to sales, get more pushback, repeat. Distributors have told us this cycle can run 20-plus iterations before anyone signs off– and by the time it’s done, the plan is already stale.
Why this is a beverage-specific problem
Beverage distribution runs on service policy in a way a lot of other verticals don’t. You’re managing delivery, sales, and merchandising visits against the same accounts, often with kegs, cases, and bottles moving through the same network at different volumes and frequencies. Cost is fixed per visit. Revenue isn’t. Every misaligned visit compounds– and it compounds faster the bigger your fleet gets.
How the Encompass integration closes the gap
Strategic Planner connects natively with Encompass, so your routes, fleet, and customer data move in one click. Once the plan is built, you have two paths for execution, and we support customers running either one: push the finished plan back into Encompass for day-of routing, or send it to Wise Systems for daily execution while Encompass continues to handle order management and route accounting. Either way, the strategic plan and the daily routing stay connected instead of living in separate systems.
Once your data is in, the tool lets you:
- Rebalance across depots by setting capacity thresholds and letting the optimizer redistribute customers to eliminate crossover
- Run a full network rebuild when you need one, or make a targeted adjustment to a single depot without touching the rest
- Compare scenarios side by side, (mileage, time, territory distribution, revenue,) before committing to any change
- Keep delivery, sales, and merchandising routes in sync, instead of managing three disconnected plans against the same customer base
- Adjust visit frequency and phasing directly, instead of making changes stop-by-stop back in Encompass
What this looks like in practice
One national beverage distributor ran a full network reroute and manually adjusted less than 3% of what the optimizer produced– down from a process that used to take 25 rounds of back-and-forth with outside consultants. Another beverage distributor found 20% of additional capacity already sitting inside their existing network, which meant delaying a vehicle purchase they’d already budgeted for.
When to use it
- Scheduled reroute, your annual or semi-annual network rebuild, done in a fraction of the time
- Depot imbalance, one warehouse over capacity while others have room
- Acquisition or new territory, deciding whether to consolidate depots or run separate networks
- Mid-year adjustments, frequency or service pattern changes without a full replan
The bigger picture
Rerouting once a year isn’t a strategy– it’s damage control on a schedule. Every month between reroutes, the network drifts further from what your business actually looks like today. Whether Encompass or Wise Systems handles your driving day, a strategic layer that connects cleanly to daily execution means network optimization stops being an annual project and starts being something you can run whenever the business changes.
Want to see how this works with your Encompass setup? Let’s talk.
