Trade Promotion Excellence: It’s Time to Unlock True TPM Value

Read the full "Journey to Trade Promotion Excellence" Roadmap

Q: In what key ways has the practice of trade promotion management changed in the last five years? 

Trade promotion has become an ingrained part of how the consumer goods industry works. The new generation of consumer is savvy and looking for every brand interaction to be connected, personalized and convenient. 

As a result, we are seeing the need for some form of hybrid business model that combines a powerful online and physical presence. For consumer goods companies, this means increased focus on trade investments and pricing strategies that appeal to consumers, whether they’re online or in a brick-and-mortar store. 

Cloud-based trade promotion management solutions are just one of the ways we’ve seen consumer goods companies successfully combine the integration of a trade investment strategy and the execution of traditional TPM into a single system. 

As companies move to become modern enterprises, there is now the potential to get even more accurate insight and information with the emergence of new technologies such as AI and machine learning. The opportunity to sense and respond to ever-changing shopping behavior comes with the challenge of assimilating new technologies into legacy systems. 

Q: What have solution providers been doing to facilitate the transformations needed to address these changes? Do they have the authority to lead the way? 

The big global consumer goods companies that have long defined the industry are now competing with digitally born players that are smaller and, in most cases, better equipped to respond to change. They live and breathe data and analytics and will continuously use consumer insights to shape rapid innovation. 

To keep pace and truly move the trade promotion dial, modern consumer goods companies must focus on developing promotion strategies that relentlessly anticipate and respond to fast-changing consumer needs at any given moment. 

The challenge is that global companies tend to have a complex set of partners and systems to navigate. To succeed, they require solution providers that are able to provide one source of truth and can connect internal departments such as marketing, sales and finance, as well as the broader ecosystem of suppliers, distributors, retailers and online providers. 

At Accenture, we place trade promotion management at the core of every digital transformation program. Increasingly, we are also using emerging technologies such as AI to enhance data and analytics so that companies can get one step closer to predicting the “shelf winners” without needing to rely on a data scientist to decipher the data. 

Q: In a recent CGT report asking about digital transformation priorities, trade promotion was ranked very low. Why is this the case, given the massive investment so many companies make in trade? 

This comes as a surprise. Trade promotion management offers huge potential to not only manage significant spend but to also get closer to understanding changes in consumer behavior. 

Investing in a trade promotion management solution — as well as analytical capabilities — provides companies with a solid foundation from which to scale a broader digital transformation program that is focused on delivering successful and sustainable revenue management. 

We often work with CGs that are seeking to improve compliance and build better, stronger connections with retailers and consumers alike. Our Accenture Cloud TPM — with forecasting capabilities — offers enterprises the opportunity to create a scalable foundation to optimize trade promotion and, ultimately, let them be smarter about where funds are allocated and across which physical and digital channels.