Cognos solutions for manufacturing

Manufacturers' payments to retailers for product promotion and merchandising can be an enormous expense - up to 20 percent of revenue and often second only to cost of goods sold. To ensure the maximum return on this investment, it is critical for manufacturers to understand and manage the effectiveness of trade promotions.

Spreadsheet sabotage and other traditional barriers

The typical trade management process is complicated, uncoordinated and spreadsheet-driven - a far cry from the coordinated planning that organizations need. As a result, manufacturers struggle to understand the effectiveness of trade promotions:

• They have limited access to the right information.
• Functional and informational silos make collaboration difficult.
• Poor processes make it difficult to monitor sales lift driven by trade promotions.
• They are unable to compare the sales and financial implications of multiple promotions.

Integrate performance management with promotion and merchandising

The IBM Cognos Trade Promotion Management Performance Blueprint overcomes these traditional barriers. It offers an integrated performance management model for effectively managing trade promotion:

• Promotion modeling can be done on multiple brands, categories and products across multiple retail customers.
• Promotion planning is enabled for corporate and customer-specific promotions.
• Mix planning can be conducted across all types of promotions, such as slotting, market development, coupons, rebates or circular placements.
• Sales volume, discounts and promotions are taken into account to drive revenue and demand volume plans.
• Flexible reporting and analysis is provided for the enterprise and at all levels, including category, brand, region, product, customer and promotion.
• ROI is calculated for promotion activities, allowing manufacturers to optimize their trade performance management.

Learn more about the IBM Cognos Manufacturing Trade Promotion Management Performance Blueprint. Download the:

• Issue paper: Manufacturing Trade Promotion Management (358KB)
• Manufacturing Trade Promotion Management Application Brief (707KB)
• Manufacturing Trade Promotion Management Demo