Consumer Goods Cloud Enables Digital Transformation
The retail and consumer goods industry has been one of the most impacted by the global pandemic. We recently talked about the importance of creating a roadmap to enable success during these challenging times in the Consumer Goods industry.
To meet the ever-changing buying habits of today’s consumers, consumer goods companies must embrace real digital transformation. Through this transformation, consumer goods companies will experience operational efficiencies, increased productivity through data that provides real-time visibility, and the transparency with their retail partners for a complete view of the consumer experience. This level of transformation is now available through Salesforce’s Consumer Goods Cloud (CG Cloud). Here are three areas we have identified that CG companies can benefit from when leveraging Salesforce CG Cloud. Look for future in-depth blog posts on each of these areas.
- Key Account Management
- Retail Execution Operations
- Service Excellence – Unified Consumer Experience
Key Account Management
We have all heard the quote from Zig Zigler, “if you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.” During these times, it is more important than ever to focus on improving the partnership between CG companies and their accounts.
Consumer Goods Cloud provides a real-time feedback loop, configurable key performance indicators, and customer surveys. It offers account managers the critical information they need to address account issues or opportunities.
Engagement Planning
The first step to an increased partnership between CPG companies and retail stores is to implement engagement planning. This means a further understanding of how retail partners and field sales representatives are performing for CPG companies. Engagement planning will help CPG companies identify which retail partners and/or field reps are performing best and may need additional support to get to that next level. Engagement planning focuses on delivering increased revenue per account and obtaining the highest level of productivity per field rep through:
- Account segmentation, including store categorization
- Account and store type assortment management
- Consumer Good analytics providing account and field rep performance reporting
- Ability to plan, schedule, and prioritize field rep routes and store visits based on relevant KPI’s through real-time data capture and analysis
Smart Visit Planning
Managing multiple territories or accounts with varying requirements can be time-consuming.
The goal is to get field reps into the right store, manage sales territories at scale and execute on the activities that need to occur to elevate the store experience for consumers.
Consumer Goods Cloud streamlines this with tools that help sales managers handle sales territories and field rep assignments at scale while ensuring field reps visit the right stores, at the right time. And with optimal routing, field reps can spend less time on the road and more time in the store, building relationships. Smart visit planning enables organizations to:
- Manage sales territories at scale – Streamline business processes with a logical store, in-store location, and product groupings
- Visit the right stores at the right time – Assign visits based on geography, account priority, and field rep availability
- Increase selling time with optimal routing – Geo-visualization and smart directions for fast-moving field reps
Sell Smarter in the Store
Now that we’ve talked about how field reps can get to stores faster, let’s focus on how Consumer Goods Cloud can impact the in-store consumer experience. Through the mobile solution, field reps can collect important data such as category, product, quantity, pricing, discounts, promotions, and unit of measure in a single ordering cart, driving increased order sizes and frequency.
This gives field reps a single version of the truth with access to upcoming promotions and new products, to help drive interest. They are now able to:
- Grow share of the shelf with mobile order capture – Identify restocking requirements and collect product orders on the fly
- Drive sell-in and sell-through with promotions – Access planned and current promotion details to support onsite sales and audits
- Capture every insight onsite – Visit surveys and configurable KPIs to monitor store performance and identify selling opportunities
Moving forward with Consumer Goods Cloud
CG companies must continue to adapt and innovate to succeed. Companies are already increasing their innovation, and the need to execute innovative solutions will only continue. Look for future blog posts in this series as we dive deeper into how CG Cloud can help your company innovate and impact your business.
To find out more about how to start evaluating how Salesforce Consumer Goods Cloud could fit into your organization and deliver against your long term strategy, check out AllCloud’s 2-week assessment today.