AI in trade promotion management: CPG leaders weigh benefits and risks
AI in trade promotion management promises to be a gamechanger, but consumer products companies will need to address AI risks.
SAP garnered 10 best-in-class distinctions in the recently published POI 2024 Consumer Goods Enterprise Planning and Retail Execution Vendor Panorama report.
We’re thrilled and honored to have received this recognition, which we believe highlights SAP’s commitment to excellence and innovation in the consumer products industry.
In its 2024 report, the Promotion Optimization Institute notes SAP’s strength in providing comprehensive, end-to-end capability for consumer products companies.
SAP’s solutions provide complete coverage for all routes to markets for both modern and traditional trade plus the ability to manage and fulfill all orders from all channels, POI said. “SAP offers a comprehensive suite of front and back-office solutions, natively integrated with SAP ERP solutions.”
POI 2024 EPx & RetX Vendor Panorama report
The POI Consumer Goods Enterprise Planning (EPx) and Retail Execution (RetX) Vendor Panorama Report assesses vendor support for CPG companies’ critical sales processes.
POI previously issued separate annual EPx and RetX reports, but this year combined them into a single publication.
The report aims to help consumer goods companies better understand available technologies and services for improving enterprise planning, trade management, revenue growth management, and retail execution. It evaluates how well vendors help CPG customers maximize the profitability of their promotions and store visits.
In their 2024 report, POI recognizes SAP in four categories for enterprise planning:
- Collaboration-External
- Field Analytics & Insights
- Global Deployment
- Trade Promotion Management (TPx) UX
The report cites SAP in six more categories for retail execution:
- Guided Selling
- Omnichannel Engagement
- Data & Analytics Visualization
- Retail Merchandising
- Retail Activity Optimization (RAO)
- Mobile UI/UX
Volatile economy, meet stability: CPG revenue growth management
CPG companies need systems that with agility + flexibility to revaluate promotions, plan capacity, and adjust forecasts. Old, manual systems just can't keep up.
SAP’s best-in-class distinctions, according to POI
POI’s recognition of SAP is a testament to our dedication to continually evolving our solutions and services to meet customer needs.
“SAP continues to raise the bar in improving and enhancing the user experience and functionality based on client requests,” POI said in their report.
According to the POI 2024 Vendor Panorama report:
- Trade Promotion Management capabilities within SAP are powerful yet simple to use.
- TPM User Experience (UX): SAP offers a strong user experience delivered through HTML5. SAP created the Trade Management Golden Process methodology based on 20+ years of working with some of the largest consumer products companies around the globe.
- Global Deployment: SAP supports and has been a leader in global implementations.
- Integrated business planning: The end-to-end information flow supporting SAP Trade Management includes the option for baseline ingestion from IBP/Demand Planning and the uplift in the return of sales volume to feed back into integrated planning.
- Customer led roadmap & eco-system supporting: SAP’s roadmap demonstrates that SAP is investing heavily in the product offering. They’re taking a customer-led approach to building out their forthcoming next-generation, public cloud SAP Revenue Growth Management product while leveraging strategic partnerships to help extend their solution.
“An obvious SAP differentiator is the full, native integration to SAP back-office (ERP, S/4HANA, APO, IBP, finance, etc.), especially as it relates to settlement, accruals, and financial processing, as well as integration with demand planning and retail store execution,” POI noted.
“Depth and expertise in the industry and the number of trained implementation partners are both strengths and differentiators for SAP,” POI added.
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POI 2024 RetX shout outs
POI recognizes SAP’s end-to-end focus in all routes to market, including intelligent retail execution and dynamic visit planning, and ability to leverage a multitude of enterprise data sources and partner capabilities to deliver smart tasks, smart ordering, and smart surveys in-store.
SAP’s revenue growth management solutions are tightly integrated with retail execution to offer sales teams visibility to store-specific promotion calendars and promotion information, POI observed.
“Promotion data is used to optimize visit plans, visit activities, and guided selling. Key account managers and trade planners can get real-time visibility to promotion compliance so they can maximize the return on trade investment.”
Regarding SAP’s use of generative AI with SAP Joule, POI noted that SAP is in “a unique position in the market because of its vast access to enterprise data across all functional areas,” including financial data, supply chain data, sales and customer data.
