In-Depth Analysis

Before the launch of its trade promotions system, Welch's, the manufacturer and marketer of Concord and Niagara grape-based products, experienced difficulty tracking promotion performance, accounting for incentive expenditures and reimbursing retailers in a timely fashion.

Eventually, user requirements from functional areas within the company drove Welch's to design and develop Tradetopia -- a Web-based trade promotions resolution system that is universally accessible over a secure extranet.

Award-Winning Insight
It was this leading-edge tool that provided insight and in-depth retail analysis that allowed Welch's sales team to respond to customer needs and to better service accounts.

The successful execution of Tradetopia throughout its entire customer/supplier/retailer base, in addition to the integration of Demantra analytics solutions suite, secured for Welch's the Customer Management Execution Award at the 2003 Consumer Goods Technology Conference.

Cultivating Trade Promotion

Welch's produces a variety of fruit-based products other than grape-products, including 100 percent juices, juice cocktails and drinks in the following forms: bottled, refrigerated, single-serve, and frozen and shelf-stable concentrates.

Welch's also produces a number of fruit spread products under both the Welch's and BAMA brand names. With a resume this large, a new trade promotion system would be needed to bring together information from several of Welch's enterprise systems.

Tradetopia, which runs on IBM's Websphere application server, does just that -- it brings together information from Welch's financial, order entry and ERP systems to enable promotional event tracking, retailer deduction management and post-promotional analysis.

Over 400 Welch's employees, retail sales brokers and field managers use the system across the United States.

By exercising a tight project management regime and closely collaborating its design development and implementation processes with Welch's sales agent, Acosta, Welch's was able to deliver Tradetopia on time and on budget.

The technology's development used the latest Web programming technology and hardware infrastructure available at that time to ensure maximum availability and adoption both within and outside the company.

Tradetopia Delivers
In the days before Tradetopia, valuable amounts of time and effort were previously spent on the processing and administration of promotions and deductions.

The successful development and implementation of Tradetopia frees up time for Welch's field and sales managers and sales agents to be more productive and responsive, revising spending allocations and viewing trade spending in real time. Now, Welch's can concentrate on growing the business with higher value activities such as consumer meetings, post-spend analysis and collections.

"This increased visibility into promotional plans and performance will ultimately enable us to accurately monitor and measure the performance of trade and other promotional investments, generate a greater return on promotions, and improve the stability and accuracy of demand signals to our plants," says Girard Liberty, chief information officer, Welch's.

Welch's has also seen the resolution of deductions go from 120 days to 30 days since implementing Tradetopia, and the company has been able to reduce the number of employees handling reductions.

Valuable Savings

Through effective management and systems integration, Welch's reduced open deductions as a percentage of net sales below 0.5 percent, compared with an industry average of 3.7 percent.

Trade overspend was almost eliminated, representing significant annual savings. Additionally, savings from the reduction in open deductions directly benefited the bottom line by releasing cash to the business.

A 2002 article titled "E-comm Inovator Award Honorable Mentions," appearing in Network World Fusion, recognized Welch's for undertaking an e-commerce project that enhanced its bottom line and opened business opportunities --- citing that since implementing Tradetopia, Welch's sales have grown about 8 percent annually.

Welch's also realized 100 percent return on investment for Tradetopia in less than one year. Applications can be developed and deployed up to 85 percent faster by reusing code developed for the extranet.

A Demantra Initiative

In April 2003, Welch's embarked on another major initiative to streamline, automate and enhance processes for customer planning & analysis, volume forecasting and customer logistics programs such as CPFR. Welch's discovered that these processes would be automated by an analytics solutions suite, Demantra Spectrum, which could better create, manage and fulfill consumer demand for its entire product range.

Demantra Provides Closure

The Demantra solution is fully integrated with Welch's Tradetopia system, automating the entry of customer plans and providing a closed loop trade promotion management system.

Spectrum helps streamline Welch's sales and marketing strategies and promotional plans, and synchronizes these plans with supply chain planning activities to enhance promotional profitability and significantly improve inventory and production planning.