The Evolution of Sales & Marketing Planning

Typically consisting of 20 percent to 25 percent of total sales, marketing, pricing and trade promotion activities are critical to the success of consumer products companies. The stakes are high as companies spend billions of dollars trying to grow their business. At this scale, an edge against the competition translates to significant wins in market share and to the bottom line. This occurs in an environment that is experiencing an explosion in data, rapidly changing marketplace dynamics, and is driven by ever fleeting consumer preferences. Those who can better understand, plan and predict are winning; those who can’t move toward extinction.  


Yesterday
A CGT Sales & Marketing Planning survey last May discovered that one out of four companies were utilizing a continuous sales and marketing planning process. The ability to quickly adjust to marketplace changes has traditionally granted significant competitive advantages.  

For example, continuous planning has been occurring for years in operations. We were introduced to concepts, including just-in-time, being lean and Kanban signal systems, that allowed for a smaller inventory, reduced cycle time, improved quality and an overall reduction of unnecessary work. In a nutshell, save time, save money and maximize efficiency. It was only a matter of time until the lessons moved through the plant’s double doors and into sales and marketing planning.


Today
Fast forward a year and we continue to see more companies address their need for continuous sales and marketing planning. As adoption increases, innovators are pushing for the next incremental advantage: comprehensive planning.  

Instead of planning in a series of practice area silos, marketing and sales are creating plans that are inclusive of demand drivers and inhibitors, even though the variables may be outside of their immediate control. Marketing is introducing new products, optimizing their total spend and allocating their resources and expectations to trade. Sales is able to understand their expectations, incorporate the predicted impact of marketing activities in their own trade plans, account for store and shelf-level considerations, integrate shopper preferences and return their expected performance.  

Instead of tackling the problem independently, marketing and sales are leveraging the insights each brings and presenting a better solution. This paired with their continuous planning approach enables them to quickly adapt to the marketplace and address any deficits in the plan.


Tomorrow
We predict the future will be built on the progress from the past and present with the addition of greater collaboration. It is only a matter of time until the lessons move back through the plant’s double doors and engage not only operations, but also retailer customers, shoppers and consumers.

In the future, a company has marketing, sales and supply chain holistically integrate and continuously adapt to the marketplace. They have a single, adaptive forecast based on the combination of consumer, shopper and retailer insights that allow them to sense and respond. They have different departments acting in unison to take advantage of a change in attitudes, behavior or even social sentiment. They are able to quickly execute through a collaborative network across their company and their retail customers.  

In the future a company is enabled to be truly demand-driven, resulting in improvements across sales, forecasting, on-shelf availability, inventory and profit.  

Marketplace evolution is inevitable, the only question is will a company lead today or be left behind in the future?