Annie's TPM Deployment Supports Growth in Organics
Offering all-natural macaroni and cheese was the goal that Annie Withey, an organic farmer, wife and mother of two, had in mind when she co-founded Annie's Homegrown in 1989.
In the beginning, Withey gained consumer loyalty by offering a truly organic product backed by a grassroots marketing approach. Even as her phone rang off the hook (she once upon a time put her home phone number on the boxes) and more fan letters piled up for her hand-written response (she still continues to do this), Annie persisted because she believed that this intimate communication with her customers was the key to her small business' success.
It turns out that she was on to something. Over the years, Annie's Homegrown has launched a number of new, all-natural product innovations -- including several varieties of macaroni and cheese, Cheddar Bunnies and Bunny Grahams crackers and breakfast cereals. It sells these products and more in all 50 states and parts of Canada.
As Annie's Homegrown grew in size and distribution, so grew its need to replace a "homegrown" spreadsheet-based solution that it used to manage trade promotions.
"We were in search of a solution that would quickly allow us to consolidate all of our annual accounts plans for evaluation purposes and give us the ability to track and adjust trade promotion spending," says Dan Mader, director of trade marketing, Annie's Homegrown. "The prior solution had become too cumbersome given the growth rates and size of the business versus the time when the solution was first implemented."
Mader -- whose responsibilities include setting the annual plan, promotion planning guidelines, MAPS direction, and promotion and distribution priorities -- set out to find an automated trade promotion management (TPM) solution. "We chose MEI because of the off-the-shelf, quick implementation capabilities," says Mader.
In mid-2007, half of Annie's Homegrown business was managed through the MEI Troubadour solution. Moving forward, Annie's Homegrown will continue to roll out the solution to its broker network. "This is cutting-edge work in the natural class of trade," he says.
By the end of 2008, Mader expects to have 100 percent of the company's account planning work taking place within the system. All of the other "shadow systems" should fall by the wayside. "When your sales team drops the other planning tools, you know you have won with the field teams," says Mader.
In the meantime, Annie's Homegrown is working hard to leverage the full utility of the TPM system, and Mader reports that implementation of the solution is going well. "We have learned a lot about our business that we would have never known in the past," he says.
One lesson learned: Manage expectations. "Any TPM system is only as good as the data fed into the application. Start with doing a few things well before taking on all the system capabilities at once, add functionality over time with your teams and enrollment will increase," he advises. At present, Annie's Homegrown is working to mate its internal data to the TPM tool while ensuring that it has enough human bandwidth inside and outside the organization to make it happen.
In terms of implementation results, Annie's Homegrown is realizing benefits regarding the financial management of its business.
"We have much greater clarity to our overall trade exposure and customer profitability due to the system implementation," says Mader. "On the whole, I can say we are making progress everyday."
In the beginning, Withey gained consumer loyalty by offering a truly organic product backed by a grassroots marketing approach. Even as her phone rang off the hook (she once upon a time put her home phone number on the boxes) and more fan letters piled up for her hand-written response (she still continues to do this), Annie persisted because she believed that this intimate communication with her customers was the key to her small business' success.
It turns out that she was on to something. Over the years, Annie's Homegrown has launched a number of new, all-natural product innovations -- including several varieties of macaroni and cheese, Cheddar Bunnies and Bunny Grahams crackers and breakfast cereals. It sells these products and more in all 50 states and parts of Canada.
As Annie's Homegrown grew in size and distribution, so grew its need to replace a "homegrown" spreadsheet-based solution that it used to manage trade promotions.
"We were in search of a solution that would quickly allow us to consolidate all of our annual accounts plans for evaluation purposes and give us the ability to track and adjust trade promotion spending," says Dan Mader, director of trade marketing, Annie's Homegrown. "The prior solution had become too cumbersome given the growth rates and size of the business versus the time when the solution was first implemented."
Mader -- whose responsibilities include setting the annual plan, promotion planning guidelines, MAPS direction, and promotion and distribution priorities -- set out to find an automated trade promotion management (TPM) solution. "We chose MEI because of the off-the-shelf, quick implementation capabilities," says Mader.
In mid-2007, half of Annie's Homegrown business was managed through the MEI Troubadour solution. Moving forward, Annie's Homegrown will continue to roll out the solution to its broker network. "This is cutting-edge work in the natural class of trade," he says.
By the end of 2008, Mader expects to have 100 percent of the company's account planning work taking place within the system. All of the other "shadow systems" should fall by the wayside. "When your sales team drops the other planning tools, you know you have won with the field teams," says Mader.
In the meantime, Annie's Homegrown is working hard to leverage the full utility of the TPM system, and Mader reports that implementation of the solution is going well. "We have learned a lot about our business that we would have never known in the past," he says.
One lesson learned: Manage expectations. "Any TPM system is only as good as the data fed into the application. Start with doing a few things well before taking on all the system capabilities at once, add functionality over time with your teams and enrollment will increase," he advises. At present, Annie's Homegrown is working to mate its internal data to the TPM tool while ensuring that it has enough human bandwidth inside and outside the organization to make it happen.
In terms of implementation results, Annie's Homegrown is realizing benefits regarding the financial management of its business.
"We have much greater clarity to our overall trade exposure and customer profitability due to the system implementation," says Mader. "On the whole, I can say we are making progress everyday."