The Death of the Manual REX Checklist: Supporting Field Reps With AI Automation

Modern retail execution (REX) relies on leveraging real-time data to transform field reps from manual order-takers into strategic advisors who use AI as a "copilot" to prioritize high-value growth.In a recent CGT Expert Exchange, Sam Mitchell, who is the managing director for Cloudgaia's global consumer goods and manufacturing practice, spoke with Liz Dominguez, senior editor at CGT, about how REX has evolved in recent years and how data and AI are being used by CPGs to integrate real-time signals into their operations.Mitchell has spent 30 years in the consumer goods industry, with the last 24 in the Coca-Cola system. During that time, she led sales strategy and execution, customer service, digital commerce, and customer service teams before moving into some chief digital officer roles. As such, she's had a first-hand look at how retail execution has evolved from a more reactive process to a strategic arm in which field reps advise retail partners. Automation in the space has raised the bar, changing field reps from manual order takers to true business developers. It has removed the friction in the REX process. This comes with increased expectations. Reps are now expected to drive growth in an environment where margins are tighter, competition is a lot more intense and cost pressures continue to rise. So for them to succeed, they need real-time actionable intelligence. This is why a customer 360 feedback loop and real-time analytics are critical in the REX process. They provide a decisioning layer that transforms insight into immediate action and addresses things like voids and planogram compliance, prioritizing high-value tasks. Mitchell emphasized that in REX, it's often more about the people than the technology. While the tech is the enabler, field teams are the ones that need to be retrained and upskilled so they can have deeper category-level conversations, influencing sales and partnering with retailers on strategic growth items. When architecting a modern REX strategy with this in mind, CPG brands should rely on real-time signals through image recognition and point of sale data — and even store-level telemetry — with a holistic approach. They hold more value when they're fused together and are validated against each other.When those multiple real-time signals converge into that single decisioning layer, that layer helps prioritize all those business impacts and what really matters for the retailer rather than overwhelming other reps with disconnected alerts and manual tasks. Inventory, then, becomes more of an execution and orchestration challenge rather than a data problem. The goal is not to show reps more data, but to surface the right data at the right time with the right insights and recommendations based on the commercial impacts and goals, said Mitchell. When AI removes the friction from their workflows and doesn't add complexity, that's when reps build trust with the technology and they don't resist AI. It's important, however, to ensure that the AI doesn't override reps' judgment, but rather augments it, functioning as a copilot rather than an authority.

The Death of the Manual REX Checklist: Supporting Field Reps With AI Automation

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