Tag Archives: event

Optimizing the Trade Plan with Applied Science

13 Jun

Note: I produced this product demo overview for DemandTec, my employer, to help show off some cool capabilities for the Trade Planning & Optimization software service.  The movie runs ~2.5 minutes and has a pretty cool audio overlay…so turn those speakers up!

Consumer products manufacturers are under pressure to drive more volume — and profitable volume — without increasing the trade promotion budget.  Problem is, most trade promotions don’t deliver economic value for the manufacturer nor do they drive an increase in category performance for the retailer.  Selling in a bad plan like this to the retail trade is tough at best.

What to do?

Isolate plans that drive profitable volume for you, the manufacturer, and also hit key category performance objectives for your retail customer.  Sounds easy, but doing this requires a quantified understanding of category behavior — including every item in the category — so that you can simulate events before they occur and isolate the good ones from the bad ones.  Predictive software from DemandTec and others do just this, and help customer-facing sales teams develop win-win trade promotion events and entire category plans.

Some of the biggest CPG companies are using capabilities like this today, paving the way for a step change in how the industry goes to market.

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Collaborative deal management is good for the industry (and consumers too)

31 Mar

miami_viceNext Tuesday (April 7) I will share the stage at the Grocery Manufacturers Association conference in Miami with two DemandTec customers — Kraft Foods and Safeway — to discuss the business benefits of collaborative deal management.  We’re expecting more than 250 attendees including CPG manufacturers, a few grocery retailers and a smattering of technology vendors, consultants and media pundits to join us for this session.

So what is deal management?  In a nutshell, it’s how manufacturers and retailers agree to which in-store promotions make the calendar, at what terms, for which products and during which time periods.  The traditional deal management process is pretty inefficient involving a combination of paper deal sheets, spreadsheets, faxes, courier deliveries and phone calls…resulting in a lot of wasted time and energy.  Each retailer uses a proprietary deal sheet and deal term nomenclature, forcing the vendor community to adapt to 20+ unique processes.

Online, collaborative deal management offers a more efficient way for big retailers (like Safeway) and their entire ecosystem of manufacturers (including Kraft Foods) to bring sanity to the process.  Paper deal sheets are now a thing of the past.  Deals are submitted and negotiated online with deal status and comments fully visible to both parties.  No lost deals, and no anxious vendors.  Meaningful efficiency gains are realized by both parties, allowing everyone to focus on more strategic activities.  DemandTec’s Deal Management software service leads the industry, with retailers accounting for roughly 33% of US grocery ACV using (or deploying) the software service.

So collaborative deal management is definitely a good thing for the industry.  As more retailers migrate to an online, collaborative process life gets a little easier for everyone.  And this is ultimately a good thing for consumers.  As trade plans are entered and negotiated more efficiently, more working dollars can flow to the shelf to support an incremental program or two.

If you plan to attend the GMA conference, we’ll see you in Miami!

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A First Class Event on Second Life

3 Feb

tpma_2nd_lifeYesterday I appeared as a panelist in a “virtual brown bag forum” organized by Trade Promotion Management Associates (TPMA) and hosted on Second Life.  The forum was structured like any real-life event would be with vendor exhibition booths, scheduled panel discussions, quality networking time…and, yes, even coffee was served.  More than 160 CPG industry executives registered and the panel discussions were engaging and interactive.  The forum went off without a hitch, and everyone seemed to have a lot of fun.

As I described to my colleagues after the event, virtual events combine the fluid interaction of a traditional conference call with the rich multimedia value of a Webex meeting.  In fact, it felt about as close to a real-world event as you can get.  While at first the idea seemed a little gimmicky, I think we all recognized the business value of this medium.  Should virtual events replace real-life events?  Definitely not.  But they certainly have their role, especially in cash constrained times like now.

Congratulations to TPMA for trying something different and pulling off a great event!

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