Closing the Loop

With more than $800 million in annual sales, Sorrento Lactalis Cheese Company is one of the largest cheese producers in the United States. But like most companies, Sorrento Lactalis found itself in the not so uncommon dilemma of having various disparate applications to manage its trade promotion expenditure for both the retail food and foodservice divisions. These applications were managing the key components of trade promotion, but were being managed in a silo environment, with minimal synchronization of the vital information.

 

"We had basic control regarding our deductions, but were extremely lagging in the analytical area regarding predictability and liability analysis," says Ken Morris, general manager of foodservice, Sorrento Lactalis Cheese Company. "In addition, as a result of the lack of synchronization, specifically regarding planning, the various operating areas had multiple versions of the current plan status."

 

Sorrento realized that its significant trade promotion investment needed a comprehensive solution that could break down the silos of information and deliver one synchronized view of the information to all operating areas.

 

FAVORING PREDICTABILITY
Sorrento Lactalis chose the Synectics Group's Account Review closed-loop trade promotion software solution. The Synectics Group team worked closely with a multioperational Sorrento team to integrate the Account Review TPM solution to Sorrento's JDE ERP system.

 

The successful integration of the Account Review solution resulted in the ability to conduct automated nightly batch feeds of necessary financial and product information from JDE, as well necessary planning, accrual and deduction information from the Account Review system. The system now provided all of the operating areas managing trade promotion one accurate view of budgeting, planning, deductions/payment resolution, and most importantly, analysis.

 

Sorrento now has access to relatively real-time reporting regarding budget versus plan versus actual shipments. In addition to this valuable trend information, the system also provides Sorrento accurate variable contribution profitability analysis by promotional event, rolled-up to any hierarchy level in the organization.

 

The combination of having real-time trend analysis and being able to project financial liability at any given time in a budget period, provided Sorrento Lactalis the tools necessary to realizing a substantial return on its trade promotion investment. The three-plus year promotional event history that resides in the Account Review at both the shipment and syndicated data level now provides Sorrento Lactalis with the predictability capability it lacked.

CG