TPM for Dynamics CRM

TPM for Dynamics CRM

Trade Promotion Management for Consumer Goods

 

Challenges

Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies are some of the largest users of trade promotional events in their go-to-market strategies, with expenditure as a proportion of revenue typically higher than most other sectors, for very good reasons as outlined in Consumer Goods Solutions

Yet even with many people from each company involved in the planning and execution of the normal raft of trade promotional activities used, and with up to 30% of revenue being diverted to fund these activities, in 2012 somewhere near half of CPG companies still use an array of spreadsheets to manage these activities.

Using a data driven tool such as a spreadsheet means that the strengths of modern business applications such as workflow, data validation, multiple users, backup, utilization of current master data to name just a s few – are all essentially ignored.

Add to this the extra direct costs involved in the time building and maintaining spreadsheets, often duplicating company data such as customers and products many times.

And of course generally more important are the indirect costs through lost opportunities, not only when sales people spend time fixing or managing their spreadsheets, but in not having the ability to see promotion effectiveness or profitability, with finance unable to easily know trade spend liabilities or if deductions claimed are valid.

TPM for Dynamics CRM

TPM for Microsoft Dynamics® CRM draws upon Flintfox’s 25 years of experience in supplying TPM solutions, integrating the specialist business logic into Microsoft’s CRM solution, to provide a most comprehensive and straight-forward TPM system that provides Consumer Goods companies with a critical advantage in managing this complex aspect of their business.

Being available as a Cloud-based (SaaS) application enables both small and medium-size companies to quickly boost their return on Trade Promotion spending, at the same time as maximizing their profitability for very little initial investment

Engineered to enable rapid planning and forecasting, its ease-of-use design importantly assists in the smooth adoption by the sales force, generally the No1 users of TPM systems. While getting Sales out of their ad-hoc spreadsheets, Companies can be up and running in a matter of weeks as comprehensive training and support programs are available to also ensure rapid time-to-benefit.

With TPM for Dynamics CRM being a 100% cloud-based application there are no setup or capital infrastructure costs providing for an extremely rapid return on investment. All setup, configuration, system administration, software updates and maintenance are included in one low monthly fee.

Flintfox has taken one of the most complex and costly aspects of managing a Consumer Goods business and packaged it into the easiest-to-use solution available on the market. Salespeople, the primary managers of individual trade agreements, can quickly and efficiently create comprehensive trade plans and submit them to management for approval. Sales and Finance can speedily process claims and deductions simply matching them to approved trade agreements. Finance has instant access to comprehensive reporting and all details to easily reconcile financial transactions. Managing Trade Promotion has never been easier.

TPM Features:

• Volume Planning and Forecasting
• Trade Fund Management
• Target Management
• Trade Promotion Planning
• Customer and Product Segmentation
• Accruals Management
• Claims and Deductions
• Complete Reporting Dashboard
• What-if Scenario Planning
• ERP and Accounting System Integration

CRM Features:

• Complete Contact and Account management functionality
• Marketing automation to systematically communicate with prospects
• Customer Service for timely and efficient follow-up on customer issues
• Robust reporting for real-time visibility into sales and marketing activity
• Powerful workflow engine to automate business processes
• The ability to manage all CRM activity within Microsoft Outlook

Benefits:

• Achieve more profitable trade promotion plans
• Make better decisions about trade spending options
• Compare forecasts and trade plans for maximum potential effect on sales
• Gain real-time visibility into trade expense commitments
• Empower salespeople to quickly and easily create promotional plans and forecasts
• Forecast the impact of trade promotion “scenarios” on revenue and profitability
• Easily reconcile claims and deductions against approved trade agreements
• Forecast volume by product, product group, customer and customer group
• Know which promotions are performing as planned and fine tune any that aren’t
• See up-to-date accruals posted against the correct GL account
• Enable full auditability and reconciliation of accruals and payments