Case Study: popchips innovates its trade promotions with fact-based business intelligence
On the verge of its 10th anniversary, popchips relied on manually compiled spreadsheets to track trade spend analytics for 284 product combinations in over 30,000 retail locations across three countries. Too often, the snack manufacturer questioned the accuracy of its data and pursued a more standardized process to plan and analyze trade promotions. After the company eliminated manual spreadsheets and implemented a true Trade Promotion Management (TPM) tool, they were able to streamline processes and commence the journey to optimizing trade spend in a dramatic fashion.
Eye-opening insights were gained within the first six months after implementing CPGToolBox Trade Planner, a Salesforce-based TPM solution with real-time business intelligence based in the cloud, enabling a holistic view of the business, from planning and budgeting, to execution and collections. Sales started entering promotions directly into the CPGToolBox system, which eliminated guesswork and allowed the team to understand exactly how trade spend affects revenue based upon past years and similar events. The system also saved popchips from costly double dipping scenarios when distributors and retailers submitted a deduction multiple times or tried to overclaim on the deduction.
“The visibility and personal ownership that comes from CPGToolBox Trade Planner has empowered everyone in the company with the most up-to-date information to make confident judgments and assertions,” says Tim Bazley, sales pricing and promotion analyst at popchips.
According to Bazley, reports and processes that could take weeks due to endless emails and phone calls validating information were trimmed down to mere clicks. With the majority of popchips’ data and reports now migrated to the CPGToolBox system, accessing outside financial tools or SAGE ERP to pull together a trade promotion analysis is no longer a requirement. Plus, clear, interactive reports allowed Bazley to review future projections and compare multiple accounts simultaneously rather than looking at promotions in isolation.
Additionally, popchips relied on CPGToolBox to gather key business intelligence surrounding its 2016 Ridges product launch. For the first time, popchips had the tools to measure, analyze and report on every aspect of every account involved in the soft launch. Gathering soft launch insights surrounding trade spend, introductory offer performances, marketing and profitability will arm the company with the data points needed to formulate a well-planned, market-wide rollout.
In an effort to further harmonize company-wide insights and analysis, and encourage cross-functional collaboration, trade promotions are able to also be reviewed on a global scale within the CPGToolBox system. As a multinational company with retailing partners across the UK and Canada, this powerful functionality is used to give popchips enhanced visibility of trade spend and improved access to global demand planning and production forecasts—all in one system.
“Now currency conversion isn’t a problem as CPGToolBox provides us with an opportunity to actualize numbers, compare apples to apples and manage deductions on a truly global platform,” says Bazley. “The wealth of information now at our fingertips has created more traceability and ownership whilst enabling us to share best practices globally and create worldwide momentum.”
About CPGToolBox
CPGToolBox provides CPG manufacturers with cloud-based, multi-tenant sales and marketing tools built on the Salesforce.com platform. With over 150 years of TPM and CPG experience, CPGToolBox provides focused industry knowledge and a proven implementation strategy to bring cutting edge, cloud-based technology to market quickly.
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