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TPM: Why the Beverage Category is Unique 

When it comes to Trade Promotion Management (TPM), the Beverage category is unique due to a couple of  factors that add complexity. This includes supporting DSD distribution models, store-level planning across networks of tens of thousands of locations, multiple routes-to-market, and integration with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and/or other systems.  Tracking, managing, analyzing sales plans, trade spending, deductions is already complicated enough across a changing range of customers and SKUs.  Finding a solution that provides exceptional customer planning, control, and insight is important.  Being able to handle the nuances of the Beverage category is a huge advantage.   

From the very beginning, UpClear has delivered TPM to  Beverage brands.  Early clients such as Danone Waters led the way with capabilities to manage customer plans across multiple countries and currencies.  Other manufacturers that have joined the BluePlanner community have given the UpClear team category expertise.  The result is specialized capabilities for Beverage brands in BluePlanner TPM. 

TPM Capabilities for the Beverage Category 

UpClear’s BluePlanner is TPM software for consumer goods brands.   A number of Beverage brands have  selected the solution for specific features that met their needs to gain visibility to optimize trade spending across promotions and channels.  

Community Coffee selected UpClear for features that allowed them to gain visibility on trade spending, accrued customer liability, and actual spend for grocery division customers (warehouse & DSD). UpClear’s software supported the ability to integrate store-level promotional discounts (for 17,000 stores) with ERP to enable seamless pass-through of deal information to the handheld units used by Field Sales. 

Like many brands, Vita Coco shares promotion costs with some of the distributors in their network.   UpClear delivered a Shared Cost add-on to promotions that integrates “floor” and “strike” prices and automatically calculates deal levels.  These data points are then translated into reporting that enables the brand to see sales, spending, and profitability across the “value chain”: manufacturer -> distributor -> indirect retailers.  Says Philip Wilner, VP of Revenue Management & Strategy, “We now have a great (TPM) product that is very user friendly. The reporting that was developed has given us visibility to our business that we never had before.” 

For Essentia Water,  BluePlanner TPM’s Shared Costs add-on and reporting was also important.  In addition, it was crucial for the TPM system to integrate with Salesforce and other planning tools.  “We have been extremely pleased with the resources and capabilities of UpClear’s BluePlanner and impressed with its ability to help us grow. If other companies want to have greater visibility of their trade costs and implications, clearer planning capabilities, etc., UpClear should be high on the list of vendors to assess.” – Justin Connell, Head of Finance, Essentia Water 

A feature that especially stood out to Spindrift in selecting UpClear & BluePlanner, was a recent enhancement to reporting.  BluePlanner TPM’s new Business Review reports deliver on two big needs: 1) standardized views of performance common to all stakeholders and users, and 2) the flexibility for users to modify and save versions of reports for their own  personalized needs.  Coupled with BluePlanner integration to NetSuite ERP, Spindrift has transformed sales planning and trade management with the latest version of UpClear’s software, BluePlanner 5.  

Whether it’s Beverage distribution in your EMEA or Asia Pacific regions or scaling to national distribution in the United States and Canada, UpClear’s BluePlanner has specialized features that supports Beverage brands across multiple markets and stages of growth.  

Check out our latest growth report.