CPG/FMCG Brands Climb New Mountains as They Grow — Why the Right 'Gear' Helps Reach the Summit
Every CPG/FMCG brand starts with the same north star: trial and velocity. In the earliest stages, success is measured by winning distribution, getting on-shelf and proving that shoppers will buy again. The operating model is lean. Decisions are fast. This is the first “mountain” to climb. Spreadsheets, emails and a handful of trusted people can carry the business surprisingly far.
But growth changes everything. The next summit is higher, and there are more obstacles in the way of reaching it.
As a brand adds products, customers, channels, promotions and people, the challenges shift. Collaboration becomes harder. Trade spending accelerates. Deductions pile up. Maintaining profitability requires more rigor, more visibility and better coordination between sales, finance and operations. This is where we see brands mature into new processes — and where systems begin to play a critical role.
Stage 1: Emerging Brands and the Reality of Deductions
For many SMB and emerging brands, the first peak to climb is deduction management. Deductions often start as an afterthought — then they overwhelm and become an operational breaking point. As sales grow, brands encounter:
- Massive burden to validate short payments
- Invalid or duplicate deductions
- Missing or incorrect backup information
- Difficult rules for disputing invalid deductions
- Long resolution cycles that delay cash and distort AR
The root causes are familiar: manual processes, limited visibility into what was planned vs. what was executed and reliance on tribal knowledge.
For this climb, tools and technology make an immediate impact by connecting deductions back to planned promotions, validating accuracy and standardizing workflows. Automated matching, better documentation and clear ownership dramatically improve speed, accuracy and cash recovery — often delivering ROI faster than any other initiative.
Stage 2: Managing Customers, Spend and Net Sales to Plan
If deductions are under control, the focus naturally changes to a more challenging hill to climb: managing customer performance against annual targets. As brands grow, leadership asks new questions:
- Are we on track to plan?
- Where are the gaps vs. the forecast?
- Which customers are over- or under-invested?
- How confident are we in our reforecast?
This evolution usually coincides with more people being involved — sales leadership, finance, account managers, revenue management teams and field sales. The challenge is no longer just data availability; it’s accuracy, alignment and gap management.
Technology helps by creating a single, structured view of customer sales, trade spend, net sales and profitability, updated continuously through reforecasts. Instead of reacting late in the year, teams can see issues earlier and take corrective action with confidence.
Stage 3: Optimizing Pricing, Promotions and Customer Investments
When brands have a handle on forecasting and delivery, they move beyond control and visibility to optimization. This is where questions shift from “Did we hit the number?” to “Could we have done better?” Brands look to optimize:
- Customer pricing strategies
- Promotional depth, frequency and mechanics
- Incrementality and ROI of trade investments
Scenario planning is essential. With the right tools, teams can test alternatives — price changes, promotional mixes or investment shifts — before committing in-market. This improves both decision speed and decision quality, especially in volatile environments where assumptions change quickly.
What Resources and Outcomes Look Like in Practice
Across our client base, we typically see the “climb team” grow as these new mountains are climbed:
- Emerging Brands: 2–5 HQ users, limited field structure, focused on deductions and control
- Growing Brands: 5–15 HQ users plus field sales, managing customer plans, reforecasts and spend discipline
- Established Brands: 20-plus users across HQ and field, with formal pricing, promotion and scenario planning processes
Common triggers that influence stage change include adding customers, moving into new regions, expanding product portfolio or experiencing margin pressure that spreadsheets can no longer explain.
How AI Is Changing the Game
Put simply: user experience and intelligence. AI makes it faster and easier to complete tasks, reducing overhead that users don’t like ... as long as you have the underlying capabilities to which you can apply agents and other AI technology. AI also means working smarter. Suggestions, predictions and insights. We refer to these two dimensions as “orchestration” and “optimization.”
4 Tips No Matter What Mountain You’re Climbing
Like a climber on a mountain, there are a multitude of paths that could be taken and decisions that need to be made. Here are four suggestions to plan your ascent strategy:
- Data governance is priority No. 1. Tools need fuel. Know what data you have where there are gaps. Master data, hierarchies, pricing, transactional data, distributor sales and retail sales.
- Talk to peers or other resources about pitfalls in the process and strategies to overcome them. Learn from the experience of others.
- Find your fit. CPG/FMCG technology is not one-size-fits-all. Consider the range of experience vendors are bringing you in capabilities to help make sure needs and capabilities are aligned.
- Focus on today, but acknowledge new mountains are coming. Capabilities range from point solutions covering a specific business process to more holistic platforms with capabilities you can grow into. Consider the entire gross-to-net ecosystem as you determine your aspirations.
Growth changes the game. The right processes — and the right system — make sure you’re ready for the mountain you’re going to encounter next.
