American Dairy Brands Slashes Deductions Resolution Cycle, Improves Sales Effectiveness with Closed-Loop Promo Management

AMERICAN DAIRY BRANDS, A CPG MANUFACTURER WITH THE BORDEN CHEESE BRANDS, in Columbus, Ohio, has realized both transactional and analytical benefits from the implementation of a closed loop trade promotion software application, Account Review from Synectics Group.

The solution links trade promotion planning and deduction processing and is tightly linked with American Dairy Brands' Accounts/Receivable and Accounts/Payable within their ERP system. This software application provides a collaborative platform for managing the entire customer relationship.

Sales and marketing, customer service, credit and collections, American Dairy Brands' food brokers, and the customer's purchase's and payables functions are all linked to the content and workflow necessary to facilitate their individual responsibilities.

On a transactional basis, the system is helping American Dairy Brands slash their deduction resolution cycle. Under their old manual system, it was difficult for their brokers to match deductions with the appropriate trade promotion and subsequently clear the item. Now, deductions are identified as cash is applied and easily linked back to the appropriate trade promotion for clearance.

"What it also does for us is provide a real time access to the brokers to see the deductions that are assigned to them", explains Bill McCurry, the company's IS manager. "Before, we were taking screen prints and faxing or e-mailing them. We would also run reports listing deductions and mail them to the brokers. They would then send the support back and we would have to clear it. ," Collaboration tools have eliminated a time consuming, cumbersome, paper-intensive process.

The analytical benefits are also substantial. Rosemary Gellner, Finance Manager at American Dairy Brands says, "The software has also added visibility on the sales side. Everything used to be on spreadsheets, but being in the field, the salespeople didn't always have the latest version of reports. Now their budgets and targets are inputted into the system, so they know all the time where they stand verses their targets. This ability to focus more closely on customer performance is providing intelligence to better direct marketing strategies and sales tactics, which are having a corporate-wide impact on performance."

Terry Ziegler, Director of Trade Promotion, worked with the Synectics Group project team during the implementation phase to enhance trade liability reporting capabilities in their software. American Dairy Brands needed the ability to manage and track projected trade promotion liabilities versus earnings and budgets on a real time basis.

"Synectics Group listened to our needs and added the additional functionality," he says. "Today we closely monitor our significant trade promotion investments at both the macro and micro levels in real time. This capability allows us to be proactive in the redeployment of trade promotion expenditures."

When asked about the payback on the cost of this software tool, Terry added, "Although the realities of our category limit our opportunities to reduce trade spending, we are realizing significant improvement in our trade spending effectiveness well into seven digits annually. This software solution has provided the much-needed planning, reporting and management functionality we sought for our business. The benefits - both tangible and intangible - from the project has paid for itself and will continue to add to our bottom line"