‘Big Data’ is a big buzzword these days, but it’s still hard to find companies truly leveraging it to optimize their business. For years, CPG companies have had sales and merchandising teams gathering field data ranging from promotion and planogram compliance to pricing audits and competitive analysis. Unfortunately, once that data is collected, all bets are off. Most companies simply don’t know how to use this information effectively.
Trying to draw the right conclusions from field data is one of the biggest challenges CPG companies face today. What business leaders really need is a way to react quickly to store trends and correct problems before they get out of control. Better yet, they need a way to automate the whole process so that no market dangers or opportunities are lost on their team at headquarters.
Reporting 101
At the most basic level, CPG companies need to develop reports that communicate the meaning of the data in visually effective ways. These reports should be eye-catching and draw immediate attention to any issues that may be going on.
Centralized Dashboards
The best answer is to embed a solution into a central dashboard so that the appropriate individuals can plainly see what’s happening in the field during the course of their day-to-day operations, rather than having to actively search for specific information. For even greater efficiency, the solution needs to leverage incoming data to predict possible issues and automate appropriate reactions.
The Spring Global Difference
At Spring, we are continuously working on initiatives to help our customers make the most of valuable field data. In fact, our mobile apps go well beyond traditional sales force automation to:
- Increase your field team’s productivity with the industry’s most intuitive mobile user experience
- Provide your executives with the data dashboards they need to make informed, real-time decisions about what’s happening in the field
At Spring, we refer to the valuable data we relay to your field and back office teams as ‘Actionable Insights.’ For example, when your field data indicates that a shelf outage is about to occur at a given outlet, our apps will automatically present an order to the proper representative to ensure that he or she restocks that product and/or orders more as quickly as possible. We also make apps that help you:
- Ensure on-shelf compliance
- Respond quickly to competitive promotions and pricing changes
- Advise clients on cross-product promotions
- Recommend larger orders based on seasonal order history
Working with our existing customers, we continue to develop new methods for getting ‘Actionable Insights’ in the right hands at the right time. Our commitment to continuous innovation ensures our customers that they will be able to take advantage of the latest methods for analyzing and acting on data as soon as they become available.
For information on our lineup of cutting-edge mobile apps, please explore our products to see how we can help you increase your field productivity with the industry’s most powerful analytics engine and most intuitive mobile user experience.
