Studies indicate that:

1. 2/3 of CPG executives are concerned about the cost and efficiency of trade spending,
2. 50% or more of the trade promotions do not meet objectives,
3. 18% of CPG manufacturers admit they have no mechanism to measure effectiveness,
4. over 40% of the trade promotion events are not ranked or analyzed,
5. there are big capability gaps in critical areas of TPM products such as promotion planning, reporting and analysis, and account profitability.

The net result is that 70% of the CPG manufacturers surveyed indicate the number one area they want to improve is their trade promotion effectiveness.

What’s scary is that the majority of the companies in this survey are larger companies that have more resources in terms of people, time and applications than the typical small or medium sized CPG manufacturer.

So what does the smaller CPG manufacturer do? You need 2 things:

1 – A superior TPM System. The complexity of managing trade spending is just too hard to do with Excel, a 1990’s technology. Today the solutions have progressed significantly and with the advent of software as a service (SaaS) cloud technology it’s a subscription model where you just sign into an existing solution that is being used by multiple CPG manufacturers. Since it’s a common solution used by multiple CPG manufacturers the product improves with best practices at a faster rate. Also the implementation and integration into your ERP solution is also easier since it’s likely been done with your system before at another manufacturer. It’s simply a better, quicker, less expensive, and less binding process.
2 – But you need to go beyond just “managing” trade spending to maximizing trade promotion effectiveness. You need the expertise and resources to utilize the TPM product, integrate syndicated and SPIN data, and do thorough analysis of your trade spending by key retailers and key promoted groups. You will be amazed at how much money is being wasted or at best sub-optimized with some retailers. You can significantly improve your ROI. It comes down to finding people that are trade experts who worked at major CPG manufacturers with experience analyzing and managing trade spending. This is harder as the resources to do this are much less available, but they are out there.

Get the help you need: contact Fred Schroeder at 847-342-1095 ext. 4011 or fschroeder@adesso-solutions.com

Studies indicate that (1) 2/3 of CPG executives are concerned about the cost and efficiency of trade spending, (2) 50% or more of the trade promotions do not meet objectives (3) 18% of CPG manufacturers admit they have no mechanism to measure effectiveness, (4) over 40% of the trade promotion events are not ranked or analyzed and (5) there are big capability gaps in critical areas of TPM products such as promotion planning, reporting and analysis, and account profitability. The net result is that 70% of the CPG manufacturers surveyed indicate the number one area they want to improve is their trade promotion effectiveness. Continue reading