Practical TPM: Plan, Execute and Measure
Members of CGT's TPM Share Group met in Orlando, Fla., during the Consumer Goods Business and Technology Leadership Conference on October 23, 2012. The group moved away from the recent TPO discussions, which are aspirational for most, and focused on more practical aspects of TPM execution.
Johan Sauer of Cognizant led the meeting and kicked off the conversation with questions around three key processes: Plan, Execute, and Measure. Here are the highlights of the open discussion:
User Adoption
The group seemed split on whether TPM in general is a help or hindrance. Sales organizations are still frustrated and adoption is a definite challenge for most companies. Yet, there is definite light at the end of the tunnel and those who are now reaping benefits of a TPM initiative, important findings include:
•Manage expectations up front
•Effectively communicate wins
•Spend the time up front getting things right before rolling out to users
•Single entry point is key
•Involve sales from the beginning to balance functionality with ease of use
•Meet with users (i.e. sales) quarterly to discuss enhancements/changes
•Transparency and change management are of utmost importance — do not underestimate!
Training
Knowledge transfer was also discussed, particularly when new sales people are introduced into the organization. Best practices include:
•Classroom/on-site training
•Field training organization
•Business process team works individually with new users
•Leverage technology, including webinars for remote users
Post-Event Analysis
Many companies are experiencing benefits from introducing formal post-event processes, including analytics, to help the organization mature and improve future promotional performance. Best practices have not been implemented in all organizations and approaches differ:
•Excel is still used by many companies for post event analysis; it is often manual and sometimes requires pulling data from multiple sources
•This is not a one-person job
•Many companies have standardized the process itself, even if manually
•Most agreed that automating the analysis is key
Analysis
In general, companies are striving for better analytics around the TPM process. This holds true for basic TPM implementations and more sophisticated initiatives that are closer to true TPO. The best practices discussed echo common themes heard in many such projects:
•Be sure to define metrics carefully and make sure tactics are well defined; if they are not well defined, then it’s hard to analyze!
•Be mindful of false precision and what’s good enough
•Remember the objective, which isn’t necessarily to take money away from sales, but to make the spend more efficient
•One company included marketing in the trade tool for planning to enable account specific marketing spend in the TPM tool; the goal is to have accurate customer P&Ls.
Johan Sauer of Cognizant led the meeting and kicked off the conversation with questions around three key processes: Plan, Execute, and Measure. Here are the highlights of the open discussion:
User Adoption
The group seemed split on whether TPM in general is a help or hindrance. Sales organizations are still frustrated and adoption is a definite challenge for most companies. Yet, there is definite light at the end of the tunnel and those who are now reaping benefits of a TPM initiative, important findings include:
•Manage expectations up front
•Effectively communicate wins
•Spend the time up front getting things right before rolling out to users
•Single entry point is key
•Involve sales from the beginning to balance functionality with ease of use
•Meet with users (i.e. sales) quarterly to discuss enhancements/changes
•Transparency and change management are of utmost importance — do not underestimate!
Training
Knowledge transfer was also discussed, particularly when new sales people are introduced into the organization. Best practices include:
•Classroom/on-site training
•Field training organization
•Business process team works individually with new users
•Leverage technology, including webinars for remote users
Post-Event Analysis
Many companies are experiencing benefits from introducing formal post-event processes, including analytics, to help the organization mature and improve future promotional performance. Best practices have not been implemented in all organizations and approaches differ:
•Excel is still used by many companies for post event analysis; it is often manual and sometimes requires pulling data from multiple sources
•This is not a one-person job
•Many companies have standardized the process itself, even if manually
•Most agreed that automating the analysis is key
Analysis
In general, companies are striving for better analytics around the TPM process. This holds true for basic TPM implementations and more sophisticated initiatives that are closer to true TPO. The best practices discussed echo common themes heard in many such projects:
•Be sure to define metrics carefully and make sure tactics are well defined; if they are not well defined, then it’s hard to analyze!
•Be mindful of false precision and what’s good enough
•Remember the objective, which isn’t necessarily to take money away from sales, but to make the spend more efficient
•One company included marketing in the trade tool for planning to enable account specific marketing spend in the TPM tool; the goal is to have accurate customer P&Ls.