IDC, Sony Talk Sales & Marketing Trends

There is little question that the world has changed over the last two years, and while consumer goods companies have been less affected than those in other industries, they have not gone completely unscathed. Yet, despite cost cuts and limited resources, the interest in sales and marketing capabilities is on the rise.

IDC Manufacturing Insights and CGT surveyed the consumer goods industry about their customer-facing initiatives and strategies for the 2010 Sales & Marketing Report.

On June 30, 2010, Simon Ellis, practice director, Supply Chain Strategies, IDC manufacturing Insights, revealed the telling findings of this sixth annual report in an exclusive Web seminar. Plus, Cara Taylor, VP Finance for Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, and Robert Russell, director, Industry Solutions -- CPG, Retail, Hospitality for AT&T, were on hand to lend real-world context to the sixth annual report's conclusions. Here is a brief synopsis of the insights revealed during the event:

- Sales and marketing tools and capabilities are growing in the consumer goods community. "Sales and marketing capabilities clearly are critical to delivering both top-line sales and bottom-line profitability performance," said Ellis. In late 2009, IDC asked more than 150 consumer goods manufacturers about their key business initiatives for 2010. Interestingly, retaining key customers made the top seven for the first time.

- Trade Promotion Management (TPM) is both the second largest cost item on the consumer goods profit and loss statement and poorly understood by many manufacturers. Cara Taylor of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (SPHE) shed some light on this dilemma with a real-life example. In the past, SPHE handled TPM through multiple channels with different ROI metrics, national and regional promotions. There was no way to assess how well the company was doing and how efficiently it was spending money at a global level. "When we sat down to look at what we needed to do, the idea was not to spend less money, but to make sure that the money we were spending was being spent efficiently, driving sales rather than just being money spent. It really became important to find something to allow us to assess everything again at that level with the goal of eventually rolling it out to a global level," she explained.

- Downstream Data remains intriguing and challenging in its applicability to sales and marketing initiatives. It has enormous potential to help consumer goods companies improve promotions and new product introductions, but it requires a re-thinking of many business processes and the use of more agile business tools. According to Ellis, the report shows that "almost 70 percent of respondents are able to directly access a retailer portal; there are multiple and growing uses for the data; and there are mixed views on DSRs."

- Sales Force Automation is a priority for consumer goods manufacturers, driven both by emerging mobility tools and the desire to do a better job of attracting and retaining key customers. Robert Russell of AT&T believes that there has been a lot said about what is out there for mobility and what works well, but sometimes there's not enough said about what causes problems. "We push our clients pretty hard to sit down and talk about exactly how those people in the field spend their day and what types of technology help versus cause them more work," Russell explains.

To listen to this Web event in its entirety, click here.

To download the 2010 Sales & Marketing Report, click here.