Challenge

When stepping into their roles, the leadership team at Xceed recognized a fundamental issue: the traditional broker model was broken. Very few manufacturers—and even fewer brokers—were effectively leveraging data to inform strategic sales and marketing decisions. Their sales teams were stuck in old habits, calling on the same operators year over year without expanding their reach. Without a strong, comprehensive data foundation, it was nearly impossible to identify whitespace, prioritize leads, or craft targeted messaging at scale. This made it difficult to align on priorities, identify true growth opportunities, and execute with precision.

As a brokerage managing multiple manufacturer clients and a growing number of acquired regional teams, they needed a common language, a clean data foundation, and a way to turn insight into action. The team saw a clear opportunity to build a more integrated, data-driven approach that could drive increased revenue for both internal teams and clients.

Solution

Xceed built Axis 360, a proprietary data platform that aggregates data sources – including Datassential’s operator database – into a unified, more comprehensive and actionable view of the foodservice landscape. Datassential’s operator segmentation, attribute data, and tracking of openings and closings became the backbone of the platform. Because many of their manufacturing clients also use Datassential, this creates a shared language, improving communication, alignment, and joint business planning.

At its foundation, Axis360 leverages Datassential’s operator data to build a robust understanding of operators across key markets. Xceed enriches this foundational data layer with proprietary data to generate tailored insights that directly support sales and marketing activities, such as identifying whitespace, scoring and prioritizing leads, powering targeted digital marketing campaigns, and pushing actionable sales initiatives directly to their field teams.

Axis360 allows Xceed Foodservice to deliver deeper market intelligence and enable more strategic planning and execution. The platform has been rolled out across both internal teams and client organizations, embedding data-driven decision-making into day-to-day workflows. 

“The breadth of Datassential’s data — access to millions of operators, and the fact that it’s fresh — is something that’s hard to replicate or find elsewhere.”

David Bremner

Director of Technology & Analytics at Xceed Foodservice

Impact

Converting Whitespace to Revenue

By layering Datassential’s segmentation and attribute data into Axis 360, Xceed moved beyond calling on familiar accounts and started surfacing net-new opportunities. The outcomes speak for themselves:

• A recent initiative targeting whitespace accounts across multiple manufacturer partners generated 13,102 cases sold in just 60 days.

• A targeted marketing campaign delivered a 6% signup rate in just 30 days

• A full US rollout for a major manufacturing customer is now underway, targeting 2600 precisely segmented accounts

A Common Language That Closes Deals

One of Datassential’s most underrated contributions: giving Xceed and their manufacturer clients a shared vocabulary. Segmentation labels like “American Bar & Grill” are instantly recognized by manufacturing clients, making it easier to align on targets, tell consistent stories, and move faster together.

Shifting Traditional Sales Behavior to Data-Driven Selling

One of the most meaningful impacts has been cultural. Xceed used data-driven sales initiatives to shift how their field reps think about opportunity — pushing curated, whitespace-only lead lists that reps had never touched before. One rep, skeptical about a product recommendation, walked into the account and discovered that they purchased 70 cases per week. Stories like that are creating believers across the organization and building momentum for long-term adoption.