The Future Is Bright
June is kind of a dreamy month -- daydream that is. It must hearken back to school days when you counted the minutes until the last day. You start thinking about the upcoming summer season and looking down the road to all that entails. You could say that the executives profiled in this issue are dreamers too: We call them Visionaries and their view of the future is helping to drive the success of their companies.
In order to innovate, compete and win, foresight is as vital as insight and consumer goods companies -- of all sizes -- rely on the "vision" of these leaders to achieve their goals. These decision-makers are constantly bird-dogging new ideas and fresh processes, planning for the future at companies such as Whirlpool, McCormick, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Heineken, GlaxoSmithKline and more.
One such decision-maker is Joe Patti, vice president, Retail Planning & Category Management, National Retail Sales, Anheuser-Busch Inc. Through the innovative use of technology, the company has become a category leader and advisor. Patti kicks off this year's Visionaries section by sharing details of the evolution of category management at Anhueser-Busch and answering questions about his leadership style, the future of the industry and his biggest "win."
Also, a standard for June in CGT is this year's Sales & Marketing Study. From planned investment to sales and marketing effectiveness and the retail landscape, find out things like: What is driving technology demands in sales and marketing; how companies measure ROI when it comes to marketing; what benchmarks are used to evaluate success; what data is being used and how it is being leveraged.