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P&G, Clorox, Coca-Cola Share New Business Strategies

10/24/2012
October 24, 2012 - The best minds in the consumer goods industry convened in Orlando, Fla. earlier this week for the 14th annual Consumer Goods Business & Technology Leadership Conference. Designed around the theme “Leveraging Insight-Driven Strategies to Optimize Business Performance”, the event provided a leadership forum for networking with peers, sharing ideas and experiences and analyzing industry trends. Here is a sneak peak behind the scenes of the event:

•In an opening keynote presentation, former Walgreens CEO Kim Feil provoked attendees to think about how prevailing methods, business practices and "this is how we do it" mindsets are struggling to keep up with changes in consumer buying behaviors and fickle channel loyalties. The business exchange between retailers and manufacturers could be enabled by a myriad of available insights and technical solutions. For example, she suggests that "consumer goods companies should work with retailers to build a playbook for turning consumers into advocates."

•Two of Procter & Gamble’s demand planning experts, Mark Kremblewski and Rafal Porzucek, explained how technology standardization has been a key enabler for the rapid expansion of innovation at P&G and helped create what is widely recognized as one of the world’s top supply chains. "In the future, we want our planners to be the conductors of an orchestra, not the musicians," said Rafal.
 
•In the second-day keynote address, Scott Dueweke, an expert on cyber-identity and black markets enabled by online anonymity, addressed the side of the online world that most people are unaware of. Nowadays, there are greater opportunities to connect with customers around the world, but also deeper, darker dangers you need to be aware of in both business and infrastructure planning. "Ninety percent of CG company systems probably have been penetrated," he said, then warned, "you leave a digital trail as you navigate around the Internet" and "identifying the bad guy is becoming more and more difficult."

•Clorox Vice President of IT Linda Martino presented a tutorial on Technology Business Management (TBM), a new model for thinking about how to manage IT to create external topline value. To date, more than 500 CIOs worldwide have signed on as members the Technology Business Management Council. Active member Martino explained how Clorox has been moving to a TBM culture over the past two years, looking at the tools used, the changes made and the success stories. "You have to run IT like a business," she said.

•In this year’s closing session, attendees learned about successful business transformation strategies from Suzana Keller, director, Strategy & Commercialization - Odwalla Brands, The Coca-Cola Company. Keller candidly shared details of the various projects in progress at Coca-Cola, including acquisitions, the journey toward integration and the creation of true transformation.

•Event attendees were the first to hear analysis and takeaways from two annual benchmark studies: the 2012 Tech Trends Report, which provides original, up-to-the-moment research on emerging and long-standing technology trends; and the 2012 Shared Strategy Report (due out in December 2012), which outlines the efficiencies, improvements and roadblocks across the retail and consumer goods collaborative business and IT environments.

Come back to consumergoods.com next week when we will reveal the winners of the 2012 Innovation, Business & Technology Awards.

For more information about CGT’s industry events, visit http://consumergoods.edgl.com/conferences.


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