SMB Award
Up-and-coming Mexican food manufacturer -- and winner of CGT's SMB Award for 2007 -- Ruiz Foods has a trade promotion budget that must compete with those of much larger competitors, so it's essential to make the most of every dollar of its trade spend. In the mid-90s, the manufacturer of the El Monterey brand of frozen Mexican foods was experiencing double-digit growth through new products, distribution expansion and heavy promotional spending.
But while the spreadsheets used to track promotional spend were great at keeping its accounting systems up to date, they weren't able to provide managers with insight into promotion performance. It could take six to eight weeks to obtain profitability reports and understand what field brokers had spent, "and when customers plan three to six months out, that's not much time to reallocate funds," notes Paul Eveland, director of trade marketing, Ruiz Foods.
So, six years ago the family-owned, midsize firm decided to upgrade to a trade spend management application. But in the case of "you don't know what you don't know," the chosen application didn't meet the company's needs. Data wasn't truly exportable to spreadsheets, and field users found the interface cumbersome. The roll out stalled.
So, Ruiz Foods went back to market with a more educated eye. On the list this time were visibility, portability and a user-friendly, intuitive interface. "We were looking to facilitate the process, not change the process," says Eveland. Gaining field buy-in was essential.
Ruiz Foods selected MEI's Troubadour Trade Promotion Management system, relying on one internal IT manager and MEI to roll out the application in just three months. Ruiz Foods started with its largest division, a group of 10 field users serving its retail division. The company is currently completing the roll out to its remaining divisions, including national accounts, convenience stores and food service providers.
As the application is extended to each division, it has both an immediate and long-term impact on how Ruiz Foods manages promotions, Eveland says. In the short term, it makes it easier for brokers to enter, open, close and allocate promotions, no matter how complex. In the long term, users begin to get real feedback on promotions, which might last three to six months.
Ruiz Foods personnel use the tool's what-if capabilities to test new ideas, and brokers can experiment with different price points and promotion levels, fine-tuning to find the right formulas.
Ruiz Foods also uses the software to compare promotional plans to actual results. If a program is not living up to its plan, a broker can end the program early, freeing up dollars for other campaigns.
Dialogue among headquarters and field personnel is also more meaningful with common data to share. In addition to day-to-day collaboration, Ruiz Foods meets with field managers twice a year to review promotional programs product by product, price point by price point and customer by customer, to make sure that promotional planning and timing is in sync.
"This has improved efficiency in spending by promotion, and allowed us to promote more and consistently maintain our growth," says Eveland. "To be double-digit year on year means the spend gets bigger and bigger. This has allowed us to maintain that growth rate, and that's something we're very proud of." Ruiz Foods has also just about doubled its market share over the past few years. "Our objective was to gain visibility of spend so we could then manage the process. That has proven the case," states Eveland.
Outstanding Achievement Awards
Johnsonville Sausage
In its first 50 years, Johnsonville Sausage LLC has taken bratwurst and sausage to 39 countries. As it prepared for the next 50, the company selected
In its first 50 years, Johnsonville Sausage LLC has taken bratwurst and sausage to 39 countries. As it prepared for the next 50, the company selected
SAP to support global growth plans on a single integrated planning and execution platform while maintaining its values of product quality, customer service and reliability.
Johnsonville started by implementing SAP human resources and payroll functions. The company decided to next deploy SAP Advanced Planning & Optimization (SAP APO) to gain new visibility into raw material sourcing, finished goods and customer demand.
The implementation met its goals. "With the implementation of SAP APO, we have been able to bring additional visibility for raw material requirements across all facilities," says Ron Gilson, CIO, Johnsonville Sausage."We have made significant progress in shortening our annual inventory and capacity planning processes."
The successful launch of the SAP APO project at Johnsonville has been instrumental in setting the stage for the larger ERP implementation, due to go live on Jan 1, 2008. Use of core ERP modules will eliminate the interfaces between SAP APO and legacy applications and create a single repository for all master data.
Burt's Bees
Growing interest in natural products has catapulted Burt's Bees from a craftshow candle booth in 1984 to a $250 million personal care product manufacturer with markets stretching from the United States to Taiwan. The company has doubled in size in the last three years and will soon become a part of The Clorox Company, which announced its intent to acquire Burt's Bees as part of a strategy to grow in and beyond its core in fast-growing, higher-margin consumer product categories.
Growing interest in natural products has catapulted Burt's Bees from a craftshow candle booth in 1984 to a $250 million personal care product manufacturer with markets stretching from the United States to Taiwan. The company has doubled in size in the last three years and will soon become a part of The Clorox Company, which announced its intent to acquire Burt's Bees as part of a strategy to grow in and beyond its core in fast-growing, higher-margin consumer product categories.
But as a mid-market player, Burt's Bees' ability to plan production grew ever more complex as it transitioned to personal care products, which now number more than 150 in categories such as face, body, hair, lip and baby care, men's grooming and outdoor remedies. The company needed a tool that would enable shorter lead times, quicker reaction to exceptions, stronger material scheduling capabilities and more customization to run efficiently, while keeping operations lean and sustaining its competitive edge. Another priority was staying ahead of the company's rapid growth.
i2's Factory Planner fit the bill. Key benefits of the implementation include reduced inventory levels, higher throughput, higher on-time delivery rates, improved customer service levels and lower manufacturing costs.