Several consumer packaged goods companies have heavily invested in technology. Technology is viewed as a platform for improving the performance of trade promotion. Unfortunately, many executives do not have the business processes or talent needed to capitalize on these technological investments. These findings were obtained from a study that interviewed about 350 senior executives of big consumer packaged-goods companies. Sixty-one percent of the executives hold the belief that the technological investments have led to an accumulation of data that can help improve the performance of trade promotion. Unfortunately, they did not have the talent to effectively use the data and boost the investment returns. In fact, 21 percent of the senior executives admitted that they trusted their intuition more than the data available when making trade promotion decisions.

About 53 percent of senior executives interviewed believed that although the trade promotion performance of the company was good, there was room for improvement. Twenty-eight percent of the executives believed that the performance was totally ineffective and required significant improvement. Only 19 percent believed that they had the industry’s leading promotion performance.

The most appropriate approach to promoting trade is blending the leading technological edge with unique talent. In addition, making greater process integration and predictive analytics would be useful. It is clear that many consumer packaged-goods companies are searching for the right areas so that they can extract improved investment returns. This is a holistic approach that has been adopted by Accentuate Perfect Promotion. The approach works by helping clients to increase the volume and effectiveness of their trade promotion with less investment. Accentuate is a worldwide management consulting, outsourcing and technological company.