“Keener, leaner and meaner”
Client Issue
Two key concerns to address
Lots of isolated projects not fully integrated, and a lack of a coordinated business planning approach. This led to a fragmented approach in dealing with the trade: trade terms and pricing not fit for purpose.
Cumbersome processes and an unclear organisational structure led to delay in launches and low forecast accuracy, which was impacting growth and competitiveness.
What We Did
We used the Commercial Diagnostic to allow key people across the organisation to input in diagnosing the problem and help develop the solutions together. This promoted ownership and empowered the middle management team to deliver, when PACH were no longer involved - Culture change by empowering middle management. We worked with the project teams to re-engineer the ways of working across all commercial functions. The work focused on 4 workstreams:
Organisational Structures and Roles - new structure & roles were designed to deliver clearer brand accountability, better financial analysis, and delivering improve trade marketing effectiveness at field level.
Planning Processes – annual strategic planning and monthly planning processes were developed to better coordinate the planning of activities across all commercial functions internally, as well as with the central head office in Geneva.
Decision Matrices – decision matrrices were designed to ensure absolute clarity of ‘who-does-what’ and avoid duplication of roles. The following distinctions exist: Decide - accountability for deliverable; Recommend - idea/architect who prepares recommendation & benefits; Input - people that must be consulted for input.
Trade Initiatives - initiatives were proposed and planned:
Enabling the brands to be effectively targeted at unique target consumer groups, by channel segment and by outlet type.
Delivery of a fit for purpose pack / price architecture, and trade terms platform for the organised trade.
Outcomes
-Speed to market: project lead times 23% faster
-Improved monthly SKU forecast accuracy: from 68% to 92%
-Reduced days inventory at Factories from 4 to 2 days, and in DCs from 15 to 7 days; 56% net working capital improvement
-Market share: +2.5% points; Market position: from 3rd to 2nd over 12 month period
