Ahold USA has reported significant time and cost-savings benefits by collaborating with their manufacturer trading partners directly on the DemandTec End-to-End Promotion Management, a solution designed to improve promotion efficiency and effectiveness for retailers and consumer products companies. Nearly all of Ahold USA’s trade promotion deals are now submitted directly by its trading partners on DemandTec, saving countless hours of manual data entry. Ahold USA operates 2,970 stores under 13 supermarket brands across the U.S. and Europe, including Stop & Shop, Giant and albert.
“DemandTec has become a trusted partner for driving key merchandising and marketing processes within Ahold,” said Jeff Martin, Executive Vice President of Merchandising and Marketing for Ahold USA. “Ahold’s business teams leverage the collaborative platform from the origin of negotiated deals with suppliers to executing promotional activities that touch our customers.”
According to DemandTec, Ahold USA utilizes the solution to manage the promotion planning process, from supplier planning and negotiation to executing highly versioned, targeted events across all customer touch points. The solution is designed to link the trading partners in a collaborative environment enabling them to:
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• Effectively plan, negotiate, execute, and track win-win promotions;
• Improve promotion effectiveness with the ability to forecast the impact of promotions and tactics using proven analytics;
• Deliver more targeted and localized messages to customers by automating promotion versions; and
• Efficiently access a single system of record for promotions and events.
Ahold USA subscribes to services in DemandTec End-to-End Promotion Management and DemandTec Lifecycle Price Optimization, which is designed to price the entire store, including new items, regular retail items, promoted items and clearance items.
Consumer products companies subscribe to a corresponding set of services on the DemandTec network to improve the quality and volume of trade deals they submit to retail trading partners. The DemandTec Total Trade Optimization solution, used by manufacturers including Kraft Foods, General Mills, and ConAgra Foods, offers a science-based platform to optimize pricing, promotion, and trade planning activities. Optimized trade plans are submitted directly to retail trading partners, like Ahold USA, that leverage DemandTec’s Deal Management service.
According to Gartner, Inc., most retailers dedicate a significant amount of effort and margin dollars toward weekly or monthly promotions, with a typical food retailer realizing up to 60% of its revenue from promoted items. “In the dynamic retail industry, competition has become increasingly fierce, and the ability to efficiently and effectively manage promotions is a competitive advantage,” said Kevin Sterneckert, Research Director for Consumer Value Chain at Gartner, Inc. “Successful retailers are moving closer to managing this complex process in an integrated and collaborative manner from end-to-end with their trading partners.”
