Articles

Sales planning and trade spend management for a Consumer Goods snack category manufacturer is an extraordinarily complex process. Routes to market can include both warehouse and Direct Store Delivery (DSD). Direct retailers, distributors, and indirect retailers are all types of customers with which you can have business agreements and spend money. 

“As we think about that complexity and how we need to be able to support different types of customers we wanted to make sure we can support trade management across the board. The BluePlanner solution really encourages partnership across all functions.”  That is what Jessica Reese, Senior Director of Trade Marketing & Revenue Management at Utz Quality Foods had to say about their Trade Promotion Management (TPM) platform: BluePlanner TPM from UpClear. 

Other snack brands including Blue Diamond Almonds, Flipz, and Mcvitie’s (Pladis Global), Nature’s Bakery (Kind), Keebler (Ferrara), KP Nuts & Tyrell’s Crisps (Intersnack) also use BluePlanner to execute their sales process. While some brands have had TPM before, others adopt the solution for the reason cited by Utz, as well as other challenges that develop over time: 

• Disparate data across many spreadsheets/sources 
• Data loss and integrity issues 
• Inconsistent information across customers 
• Excessive time needed to research deductions 
• Loss of control of trade budget 
• Inability to quickly access business performance data 

What is TPM? Think of BluePlanner TPM as an “operating system” for the sales process in Consumer Goods. The main users of the system are Key Account Managers, but the solution benefits Accounting/Deduction Management teams, and Finance as well. BluePlanner TPM adds structure and control to the process as teams execute the selling process: 

• Setting budgets and building customer plans 
• Forecasting volume 
• Planning, approving, and executing promotions 
• Validating and categorizing deductions for Accounts Receivable (AR) 
• Helping Finance forecast trade spending accrual 
• Analyzing promotion and business performance  

“We believe UpClear’s BluePlanner solution is a perfect fit for Blue Diamond Growers. Ease of use and speed of deployment were two key reasons why BluePlanner was the clear choice.”  – Corby Drewes, Senior Manager of Sales Operations at Blue Diamond Growers