Gartner recently published a Market Guide for Trade Promotion Management and Optimization solutions (August 2015). Oracle has made this white paper available on their website for good reason. In the article, Gartner ranks Oracle’s Trade Promotion solution as one of the most mature and further suggests that Oracle will remain a leader in TPx into the foreseeable future.

Trade Management is a very common collaborative process in CPG industry in which Manufacturers sell their products to their customers which include Wholesalers, Distributors, Retailers and Brokers by presenting and executing incentive programs. Manufacturers also support merchandising activities such as Feature Ads, In Store Displays and Temporary Price Reductions. The main objectives of these Trade Programs are to generate incremental volume, capture market share and increase revenue and profits for both the manufacturer and the retailer.

Consumer Good Companies operate in very competitive markets and face significant growth and profit margin challenges from rising prices and from the market power of other large competitors. For most CPG companies, Trade Spend is the second largest expense after Cost Of Goods Sold (COGS). Hence it is vital that companies strategically plan these trade programs and promotions, evaluate the effectiveness of the promotions executed and make the necessary changes to evolve toward a more effective and efficient trade management process.

This competitive landscape has forced companies to recognize the business need to deploy a more efficient trade spend management process, and develop the capacity to measure the return on trade spend to drive better business investment decisions.

In response to the market demand to reduce project delivery time and cost, Inspirage has developed a “Rapid Start” program for Trade Promotion Management. The Rapid Start Program offers a number of standard industry workflows, worksheet configurations and functional design inputs that compress the typical project delivery time frame and help minimize system complexity (a common risk in trade promotion management projects).

The Rapid Start Program has two offerings based on the maturity of the client’s Trade Promotion Planning Process:

• Foundational Trade Promotion Management – This offering is designed for Target entry-level medium sized consumer oriented companies with a pre-configured Demantra PTP and Demantra DSM solution

• Advanced Promotional Analytics – This offering is designed for larger enterprises that may already have transactional TPM systems and robust data using a preconfigured Demantra PTP advanced predictive modeling capability.

The Rapid Start Solution has been successfully implemented by many of our clients including a major manufacturer of potato, egg, cheese and other dairy products. This solution enabled the client to gain operational efficiency from the integrated trade promotion management system by having the ability to control trade promotion related expenses that represented a substantial portion of their overall operating budget.

Another client with a successful deployment of the Rapid Start Solution is a farmer owned cooperative that manufactures and distributes fluid milk, butter, cottage cheese, yogurt, and other cultured dairy products. The client was able to efficiently plan plan, execute and track planned promotion spend, compare the accrued spend vs. actual spend and an increased visibility to the effectiveness of the promotions.

Learn more about the Inspirage Rapid Start: Trade Promotion Management solution by downloading our data sheet.