Granular field team store data can be digitised and utilised in joint manufacturer and retailer planning

According to the POI Institute, the number one issue preventing consumer goods organisations from exceptional retail execution is limited availability and/or use of data and insights. Yet only a third of surveyed companies had integrated Trade Promotion Management (TPM) and RetX (Retail Execution) systems, and the lack of digital integration between these systems was considered to be severely impacting both execution and revenue gains.

The POI study is not a one-off, it’s an endemic consumer goods industry problem. And it illustrates the issue of a lack of information flows, particularly ‘back the other way’ from field sales and merchandising teams to key accounts and to retailers. This is resulting in roadblocks to better promotions and sales volume planning across all parts of the supply chain.

But the ‘nirvana’ of 3-way communication between key account, field sales teams, and the retailer is achievable.

Currently there are one way communication and data silos. Whilst instore activities and promotions are planned and agreed between key accounts and the retailer, and some or most of the resulting execution information and instructions flow from key account managers to field sales and merchandising teams and related instore agencies to execute, most of this information is one-way.

Where Trade Promotion Management (TPM) systems are often linked to an organisation’s ERP system, often the field Retail Sales In-store Execution and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are standalone. The TPM and Retail Sales systems are not linked, thus the flow of information is not two-way.

Achieving nirvana in this scenario is the ability to plan at both the field customer and key account levels, where everything you look at from a field sales POS (Point-of-Sale) data perspective influences key account planning. In effect, evolving field sales data into a predictive analytics tool for production and demand forecasting, sales planning, sales force deployment balancing, and even accruals management.

Integrating POS data including that from the retailer enables the ability to calculate different variable impacts on demand and ROI planning such as changing SKUs, product groupings, customer buying groups, volume, phasing, impacts of cannibalisation and sort term seasonality or external key event impacts. Individual store data can be aggregated geographically such as by state to tailor promotional activities to specific areas. Promotion execution data can yield cost-to-serve information that can be used to define future promotions.

Getting there involves expanding and digitising the scope of what the field sales teams collect, beyond compliance. Determining how the existing data can be used to inform planning, and what additional data could better inform planning and real-time activity adjustments. Then getting a system that integrates your TPM, Retail Execution, and CRM systems all via the company ERP.

By creating a holistic view through a single data source of truth, and a two-way information flow, you can better manage forecasting and supply as well as cost to serve, as well as provide tools for field teams to better influence instore negotiations with retail partners.

For more information visit www.exceedra.com or contact Luke Pocock at luke.pocock@telusagcg.com