Supply Chain

A sneak peek inside Praveen Gupta's new book on how to drive profitably innovate

Michael Forhez, director of Business Solutions, Consumer Markets, TCS, sheds some light on how your company can ride out a tumultuous river of challenges to arrive at optimized trade promotions.

There is no doubt about it General Mills Corporation has entrepreneurial spirit when it comes to reaching consumers in new ways with new products. One of the company's recent new ventures, Gluten Freely, is the perfect example.

American Greetings is a well-oiled, retail-testing machine. Through the use of a robust process, test plans are prepared and executed, results at retail are analyzed, and product distribution strategies are formulated all with ease.

Leveraging new processes, technology and insights can have a tremendous impact on the effectiveness of trade spend. But, new research found there is still plenty of room for improvement.

It's important to examine the challenges facing DSD suppliers, and how they can respond today, and in the future, to demonstrate the superior value-add of DSD.

While most retailers have already closed their worst performing stores and taken cost-cutting measures to stay afloat, the uncertain economic climate might lead to a substantial number of store closures in the first quarter of 2012.