Artificial Intelligence

In this era of social media and mobile consumers, successful sales and marketing requires collaborative technology to make an impact. Themed around the coveted IT/Marketing Alliance, the 2014 Consumer Goods Sales & Marketing Summit united sales, marketing and IT trailblazers to explore and compare strategies and lessons learned in their journey toward true alignment.

The first half of 2014 flew by, yet so much has changed. CGT stops time for a moment to recap the most-read news and trend stories on consumergoods.com from January through June. What does this short list tell us? Consumer trends, industry predictions and big data, of course, are the top-of-mind topics among our readers. And, it seems as though everyone is trying to figure out the next big thing.

The new offering provides clients with end-to-end business intelligence that drives sales by delivering real-time, actionable intelligence to field operations for improved in-store retail execution and on-shelf availability.

This 10th anual list from Gartner, Inc. features several longtime leaders with new lessons to share and a number of more recent entrants from the high-tech, consumer product and industrial sectors.

Everything around you is in a constant state of change. Technology has catapulted the way retailers and suppliers provide products to the consumer, requiring them to look at their businesses differently almost on an hourly basis. Britt Fogg, CEO, president and founder of Shiloh Technologies, a division of SPI, gave us his insights around the speed of change in the retailer/supplier industry.

CG companies are in need of an overhaul. Historically, it was logical to structure a multinational's operations on the basis of geography, but this way of working is no longer fit for purpose due to factors such as globalization and different levels of digital maturity. At the same time, companies now require much more sophisticated approaches to engage and excite their customers.

In her monthly column, Lora Cecere reveals what it takes to get consumer goods companies unstuck and lead business and technology transformation in the industry.

Unilever announces the launch of The Unilever Foundry, a platform that will provide a single entry-point for innovative start-ups seeking to partner with Unilever.