The Kraft Heinz Company is the fifth largest food and beverage company in the world, operating in over 40 countries, generating over $26bn in net sales in 2020. A globally trusted producer of delicious foods, KHC provides high quality, great taste and nutrition for all eating occasions whether at home, in restaurants, or on the go. The Company’s iconic brands include Kraft, Heinz, ABC, Capri Sun, Classico, Jell-O, Kool-Aid, Lunchables, Maxwell House, Ore-Ida, Oscar Mayer, Philadelphia, Planters, Plasmon, Quero, Smart Ones and Velveeta.
Business Challenge
The Japanese retail and food & beverage restaurant environments are characterized by a mix of fragmented distribution networks and consolidated modern trade retail channels. Kraft Heinz Japan recognized this complexity and understood that they were operating under significant process and system constraints. An outdated legacy system and excel-based workflows reduced visibility into Discounts and Allowances (D&A) and Advertising and Promotional (A&P) investments. In addition, Kraft Heinz Asia Pacific sought to standardize supporting system infrastructure across several key but distinct markets in the Asia Pacific region. Kraft Heinz Japan needed a modern system that would enable efficient promotion management, ROI-driven commercial plans, dispute-proof claim reconciliation, and insight analytic capabilities to optimize trade investments.
Solution & Capabilities
UpClear’s BluePlanner Revenue Management solution offered Kraft Heinz Japan end-to-end Trade Promotion Optimization capabilities, from demand planning and budget management through to trading terms and promotion management with post-event analysis and analytical reporting dashboards.
BluePlanner’s versatility in addressing the specific needs of the Japan retail and restaurant environments allows Kraft Heinz to flexibly manage complex distribution-push, traditional trade routes-to-market as seamlessly as modern key account retail channels and driving trade incentives to achieve the highest ROI, entirely replace the claim settlement with a streamlined, paperless process through a distributor claim portal to completely remove the paper trail, and gain deep analytical insights to discover hidden sources that drive revenue growth.
“BluePlanner has played a key role in allowing us to streamline and automate our end-to-end trade promotion process while maintaining high levels of trade partner collaboration.”
Adam Keller, Head of IT – Kraft Heinz North-East Asia
Deployment Approach
UpClear drove a modular deployment approach that allowed Kraft Heinz Japan to deploy individual modules in overlapping fashion, in order to quickly unlock business value but at a consumable pace. Led by UpClear’s Asia-Pacific team, the project was implemented completely remotely, due to Covid19 restrictions, while in close collaboration with the client’s Sales, Finance, and IT teams.
Realized Business Value
The capabilities introduced with BluePlanner have enabled Kraft Heinz Japan to leave behind the constraints of their legacy TPM system and flexibly formulate distributor and consumer incentives that drive incremental sales, design comprehensive sales plans that effectively cascade promotional activity down the value chain of distributors, trade partners, and retail outlets.
“Deploying BluePlanner has improved our trade promotion management capabilities and enabled us to manage pricing, deductions, and allowances across all routes-to-market and channels, ensuring that our iconic brands and much-loved products are always within reach of our customers.”
Adam Keller, Head of IT – Kraft Heinz North-East Asia
About UpClear
UpClear makes software used by Consumer Goods brands to improve the management of sales & trade spending. Its BluePlanner platform is an integrated solution supporting Trade Promotion Management, Trade Promotion Optimization, Integrated Business Planning, and Revenue Growth Management.
