Beverage industry leader uses analytics to optimize retail trade spend
Decision-driven analytics framework unlocks $10 million in annual revenue opportunities
As one of the world’s largest beverage brands, it’s not surprising that this company allocates a $5 billion annual budget for retail promotions, signage and sales activities. What is surprising is that it managed this massive spend with manually prepared, cumbersome spreadsheets.
The inefficient and insufficient process often left gaps in the budget that were difficult to see, resulting in unused funds as well as underused funds that didn’t live up to their sales-generating potential.
The company turned to NTT DATA data and analytics services for a decision-driven analytics solution that included a series of dashboards and a calendar planning view to highlight actions that would drive revenue.
Business Needs
The beverage company relied on three to four people for two to three days each month to try and understand current performance, trends and budget status. The effort kept these team members tethered to the office instead of in the field driving revenue.
These constraints also meant the team was more focused on staying on budget than on thinking strategically about how to best deploy the funds to maximize revenue.
Outcomes
- Gleans meaningful data insights in four key areas
- Cuts days-long budget analysis to a 15-minute strategic exercise
NTT DATA’s decision-driven analytics framework went beyond traditional analytics approaches to make the global beverage brand’s data visual, actionable and valuable.
Solution
To better identify the questions that drive effective decision-making, the beverage company turned to NTT DATA. NTT DATA’s proprietary Decision Architecture framework enabled the brand’s team to understand not only their budget status but also where to focus their attention to allocate funds most effectively. The company now has meaningful analytics in four key areas — customer performance, bottler performance, trends and marketing spend and effectiveness — and can easily identify previously underutilized customer and package combinations for promotional strategies.
A series of dashboards guides users through the diagnostic flow, highlighting specific actions they can take to drive revenue. And for the first time, a calendar view enables the team to see all promotions in one spot — basic but vital information for promotional planning and execution they never had before.
What used to be a days-long, tedious and limited budget analysis process is now a 15-minute strategic exercise. The team can quickly view budget status and overall performance, understand which types of promotional and sales activities have historically been the highest performing, and see where in their calendar to position these activities going forward. The sales team also uses it as a tool to better understand their own performance and have conversations with customers about spending allocation.
Overall, the Decision Architecture-based solution enabled the beverage brand to identify increased revenue opportunities —reaching $10+ million a year.
About the case study
A large beverage brand leveraged NTT DATA’s proprietary Decision Architecture to create a business analytics solution that made revenue-driving insights easy to access and use.