Data & Analytics

The first half of 2014 flew by, yet so much has changed. CGT stops time for a moment to recap the most-read news and trend stories on consumergoods.com from January through June. What does this short list tell us? Consumer trends, industry predictions and big data, of course, are the top-of-mind topics among our readers. And, it seems as though everyone is trying to figure out the next big thing.

In this era of social media and mobile consumers, successful sales and marketing requires collaborative technology to make an impact. Themed around the coveted IT/Marketing Alliance, the 2014 Consumer Goods Sales & Marketing Summit united sales, marketing and IT trailblazers to explore and compare strategies and lessons learned in their journey toward true alignment.

The new offering provides clients with end-to-end business intelligence that drives sales by delivering real-time, actionable intelligence to field operations for improved in-store retail execution and on-shelf availability.

Kimberly-Clark has been an industry pioneer, industrializing its business process operations through Genpact in 2007, when the company made the strategic decision to drive more cost-effective finance operations in order to focus on product innovation and customer service.

Kellogg will use APTs cloud-based Test & Learn software to evaluate initiatives in merchandising, product, pricing and operations.

Everything around you is in a constant state of change. Technology has catapulted the way retailers and suppliers provide products to the consumer, requiring them to look at their businesses differently almost on an hourly basis. Britt Fogg, CEO, president and founder of Shiloh Technologies, a division of SPI, gave us his insights around the speed of change in the retailer/supplier industry.

Brand new research from CGT and IDC Manufacturing Insights examines the substantial progress that consumer goods companies are making in the areas of trade promotion management, downstream data, consumer engagement and S&OP.

Big Data hype is everywhere these days even on the daily news. But how many consumer goods companies are actually pursuing big data initiatives to extract valuable insights, particularly from retail-provided POS data? And even then, do retailers value these big data efforts?