CGT Inside News - 08/23/2006

IBM to Spend $100 Million to Drive 2006 SMB Sales

August 24,2006 - IBM Corporation is shelling out $100 million in an effort to reach thousands of IT resellers around the globe who sell hardware, software and services to the small and medium business (SMB) market. The initiative, dubbed Express Track, is part of IBM's ongoing SMB market expansion focus throughout 2006, targeting increased mid-market sales of IBM technology solutions through IBM's primary SMB channel, IBM Business Partners.

Earlier this year, Donn Atkins, general manager of IBM global business partners, said IBM wanted to add 5,000 new SMB partners -- many of them sell competitive platforms -- to its roster. Last week, Atkins reported that IBM is well on its way to meeting that goal: "In the first half of this year, we enlisted over 2,500 business partners," he reports.

SMB has become an increasingly important part of IBM's overall business. In the first two quarters of 2006, the SMB segment accounted for $7.9 billion of IBM's $40.2 billion sales to corporate end-user customers. IBM Business Partners drive more than half of IBM's sales in the SMB marketplace, and IBM's Intel and AMD-based System x and BladeCenter server lines and entry-level storage solutions represent a significant part of those sales. In addition to offering demand generation, IBM also adds more than 300 people worldwide to provide coverage and enablement for local IT resellers.

HP Noisy Lab Deploys Scientific RFID Tag Testing Software

Japan's HP Noisy Lab -- a joint venture between HP, IDEC Controls, Toyo Kanetsu Solutions and WL Solutions -- installs ODIN technologies' EasyTagTM tag testing software. The software enables HP Noisy Lab to scientifically test items for optimal UHF RFID tagging. EasyTagTM is running in Noisy Lab today and operating at Japanese frequencies in the 952 - 954 MHz range. It works by using the key metrics of power effectiveness and orientation sensitivity to arrive at an overall number of how well a tag and location perform on a SKU.

Walls Industries Enhances Productivity and Inventory Visibility

Apparel manufacturer Walls Industries will deploy Manhattan Associate's EPC Manager to meet retailers' 2007 compliance requirements as well as to add value to its supply chain processes and provide greater inventory and shipping accuracy. EPC Manager will integrate with Manhattan Associates' Warehouse Management solution, already deployed at Walls. "Manhattan Associates has been a great partner over the years, and we value the relationship," says Tom Felton, chief information officer at Walls. "It has provided us with not only the solutions to support our distribution activities but the hardware as well -- from our IBM System i servers to scan guns. When it came time to look for an RFID solution, we quickly determined that the best course of action was to leverage our relationship with Manhattan Associates."

Glazer's Distributors Improves Sales Team Efficiency

Glazer's Distributors, a wholesale distributor of wine, spirits and malt beverage products, implements a mobile computing solution from Psion Teklogix using customized software from Inventiv Software LLC. Glazer's is using Pocket Advantage, Inventiv Software's sales force automation software and Psion Teklogix' rugged NETBOOK PRO and WORKABOUT PRO hand-held devices. The new solution is designed to process sales orders across 36 distribution centers in 10 states. The versatility of the two products helps to meet the varying needs of sales team members, providing them with scanning capabilities for display tracking and on-site order placing, which will reduce data entry errors and update inventory data in real-time. The new solution is also helping to reduce processing times from 10 minutes to one to two minutes, increasing Glazer's overall efficiency.

M&M'S Answers Call of Consumer Demand

M&M'S Candies is enhancing the dark chocolate category with the permanent introduction of M&M'S Dark Chocolate Candies. The new offering combines smooth and delicious dark chocolate with the brightly colored M&M'S candy shells that consumers know and love. In the past year, M&M'S has received more than 30,000 inquiries from consumers clamoring for dark chocolate M&M'S, which were made available for a limited time last year. "We've received tremendous interest from consumers to make M&M'S Dark Chocolate a permanent offering," says Michele Kessler, vice president of marketing at Masterfoods USA. "M&M'S and dark chocolate fans will love our new M&M'S Dark Chocolate Candies because we combine the great taste of dark chocolate with a dose of M&M'S fun!"

Kraft Spin-off Accelerated By Court Decision

Associated Press reports that investors may not have to wait much longer for an Altria Group Inc. breakup after Judge Gladys Kessler's ruled that although tobacco companies deceived smokers about the health hazards of smoking, it did not have the ability to award substantial financial penalties. Citigroup Inc. analyst Bonnie Herzog wrote in her note, "Get ready for Altria to move the cheese," in reference to its long-planned spinoff of Kraft Foods Inc. "The decision issued removed a legal cloud that had been hanging over the industry. It also removed a great deal of the uncertainty that had been holding back the breakup of the world's largest cigarette maker."

 Iconix Brand Plans Acquisition of London Fog

Iconix Brand Group Inc. recently announced the planned acquisition of the London Fog brand from London Fog Group Inc. for $30.5 million in cash and $7 million in Iconix stock. Founded in the 1920s, London Fog is an internationally recognized brand of men's, women's and children's outerwear, apparel, accessories, luggage and travel products. Iconix Brand will also enter into a license agreement with outerwear maker Herman Kay Bromley. Herman Kay Bromley will hold the license for men's and women's outerwear and women's suits in the United States. The company is currently evaluating numerous additional domestic and international licensing opportunities and will announce a more expanded licensing program shortly.

Circuit City Offers Improved Customer Service

Circuit City implements AT&T's converged multimedia networking solution to offer its customers a better experience when they interact with any of the company sales channels, retail stores, online and the call center. AT&T's solution includes voice, video and mission-critical enterprise applications on a single network infrastructure. Circuit City also uses AT&T's high-speed Internet access service to provide retail customers and store associates with access to Web-based resources, such as circuitcity.com.

Mark's Work Wearhouse Integrates Merchandise Intelligence

Mark's Work Wearhouse selects SAS Merchandise Intelligence solutions to support its advanced integrated planning needs. The retailer is utilizing SAS's integrated merchandise intelligence suite, which includes Marketmax Financial Planning, Marketmax In-Season Management, Marketmax Assortment Planning, Demand Forecasting and Marketmax Allocation.

WiseWay Food Centers Beef Up In-Store Technology

WiseWay Food Centers upgrades its in-store technology with a seven-store rollout of Retalix HQ and Retailx Store back-office solutions. WiseWay Food Centers also uses Category Analyzer and Design-R-Labels as add-on products to Retalix HQ.

Vision Chain Introduces Demand Signal Repository Solution

Vision Chain Inc. introduces a new solution for consumer goods companies that offers a Demand Signal Repository for a single retailer. The solution, DSR Express, is a scaled-down version of the company's enterprise demand signal repository that automates the typically time-consuming, labor-intensive data searching tasks of forecasting and replenishment analysts, field sales managers and demand planners. By providing immediate access to a DSR for a single retailer, executives can track product sales and margins by region, store and product; tune demand forecasts to reflect current sales trends; synchronize retailer data with internal hierarchies and distributors; and more.

Markem to be Acquired by Dover Corporation

Markem President James Putnam announces the company's intention to be acquired by New York-based Dover Corporation. "This is an exciting opportunity for MARKEM," says Putnam. "With our industry undergoing significant changes it became clear that we needed to capitalize on our marketplace strength and pursue a strategy to best position MARKEM for the future." As part of the agreement, Markem will retain its company name and remain at its Keene location. Dover Corporation believes in a decentralized management philosophy. As such, Markem's current operational management will continue to manage the company.

Tyson Names Group VP of Consumer Products

Tyson Foods named Robert DeMartini as group vice president, consumer products, who will join the meat and poultry product in September 2006. DeMartini was most recently senior vice president and general manager of Gillete's grooming division.

Interstate Bakeries Appoints New Board Member

Interstate Bakeries Corporation (IBC) appoints David N. Weinstein to its board of directors. He was appointed to fill the vacancy left by the resignation of Charles Sullivan, who retired July 31, 2005. Weinstein is a senior investment banking and reorganization specialist and has served as both chairman and a member of the boards of several public companies. Weinstein has more than 15 years' experience managing high-yield capital markets groups for several financial institutions. Most recently, Weinstein served as chairman of the board for Pioneer Companies Inc.

MEI Hires New VP of Sales

To continue driving the growth of their business, MEI hires Lisa Welch as its new vice president of sales. Lisa's extensive background includes more than seven years at Oracle, as well as, other technology companies such as IBM and iMany, among others. Lisa's role will be to continue to expand on MEI's aggressive growth over the past nine months and to maintain the solid reference-ability of its clients.

Get on the Same Page:

Planning and executing effective retail sales calls at headquarters and in-store

By Bryan Flynn, StayinFront

In early 2006, industry analysts at Gartner asked 1,400 CIOs to prioritize their most critical areas of concern and they ranked improving customer relationships in the top three.

Adding to this pressing issue is that CIOs need to arm their marketing, sales and service teams with better tools to manage and control the flow of information to the field representatives responsible for selling to and servicing customers. And to complicate the issue further, for the most part, today's consumer goods sales and marketing organizations are dispersed across the country selling many products into different channels and to multiple accounts. 

So how do you improve customer relationships while fully supporting customer-facing personnel in this challenging and ever-changing landscape? One critical way is to help them deliver value, insight and expertise through every customer interaction -- at headquarters and in-store.

The next question is how do you help them accomplish this?  The answer is two-fold:

1. First, you gain an understanding of each customer's unique reasons for buying from you, and
2. You arm your organization with best practices and the right technology to help them prepare for and execute great sales calls -- in every instance.

Thankfully, now consumer goods companies can utilize the latest configurable software and synchronization and workflow technologies to ensure they are making effective, targeted sales calls and then transmitting results back to management. Solutions, such as StayinFront Consumer Goods, can help companies know what is happening at all times with all of their customers. Companies should seek solutions that are simple to use in the field and also allow managers to easily create tasks, surveys and audits (based on pre-defined roles) and then push these requirements out to field personnel for headquarter presentations and in-store execution.  A simple, one-touch interface that makes capturing in-store activities and results painless ensures that the results of in-store activities are returned to head office for reporting and analytics. To further support effective sales calls, select a system that can be deployed on various hardware devices such as laptops, tablets and handhelds to ensure your field force is leveraging one system with one code base instead of multiple systems on multiple devices with different user interfaces. 

Bryan Flynn is a consumer goods expert with CRM leader StayinFront. He can be contacted at [email protected].