64% of manufacturers face internalfragmentation when it comes to trade

Tag : Industry raw materials
"Significant margin impact from skyrocketing raw materials costssuch as wheat and oil have driven consumer goods companies of allsizes to explore ways to protect their margins in the contractualtrading relationship with their retailers," said Jeff Sampson, CEO,Kineticsware. "With this acquisition, Kineticsware increases thebreadth of its functionality to support the entire lifecycle of atrade promotion from budgeting, planning, execution and settlementto monitoring and analysis. Our customers can take control offragmented trade promotion processes and improve the efficiency andeffectiveness of trade spending without requiring them to replacetheir existing ERP platform."
"Flintfox has a proven track record of providing practical tradepromotion management solutions to consumer goods companies over thepast 15 years," said Flintfox CEO Mike Ridgway, who will become theManaging Director of Asia Pacific for Kineticsware. "Joining forceswith Kineticsware gives us the resources to accelerate ouradvantage in the TPM market in areas such as advanced pricing andpredictive analytics and extend service, support and delivery on aglobal scale for both new and existing customers." Customers suchas Gorton's, a leading provider of seafood products, are optimisticabout the advancements in the product line, new offerings andsupport that will come with investment and energy fromKineticsware.
Increasing to over $120B annually in the United States, trade spendtypically represents between 8 to 15% of net sales for consumergoods companies, yet less than 30% of trade promotions demonstratea positive return on investment. Commenting on the announcement,Sahir Anand, Senior Research Analyst of Aberdeen Group, said,"Aberdeen data shows that 64% of manufacturers face internalfragmentation when it comes to trade marketing data, performancemetrics, planning objectives and retail compliance guidelines forsales, marketing, and finance organizations. CPG companies lackadequate insight into the key transaction management, deductionevaluation, and trade spend analysis that enables them foreffective retail execution. This acquisition further bolstersKineticsware's position in providing a synergistic platform forend-to-end trade promotion management, from budgeting to analysis."
Flintfox software will become core to Kineticsware Trade PromotionManagement which includes the following, integrated components:
The solution is developed using the Microsoft .NET Framework andleverages the latest business intelligence, workflow, reporting andcollaboration technology from Microsoft to ensure high ease of use,low total cost of ownership and painless integration with multipleERP systems such as SAP and Oracle. The Kineticsware TradePromotion Analysis solution also integrates data from point ofsale, third-party syndicated marketing data and scan-basedoperational systems. In addition, the Kineticsware solution runsnatively within Microsoft Dynamics AX out of the box. "For consumergoods customers that are running their business on, or evaluatingMicrosoft Dynamics AX, Kineticsware's TPM solution should be apriority consideration," commented Hal Howard, General Manager forMicrosoft Dynamics.
"Recent research by TPMA demonstrated the biggest area for tradepromotion process improvement was to maintain the same levels ofspending while driving more volume. Core to delivering on thisbenefit are solutions that support the entire lifecycle of a tradepromotion. These benefits will improve the overall collaborativeplanning process and deliver value to the end consumer in the formof better pricing and promotions," said Mike Kantor, ManagingDirector of Trade Promotion Management Associates, the industry'sleading TPM/TPO trade organization.
The expanded Kineticsware TPM solution will be distributed througha mix of channel partners including Microsoft Dynamics partners,system integrators, and specialized consulting firms that focus onsolutions for the consumer goods industry. Initial market coverageincludes United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UnitedKingdom, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, andItaly.
About Kineticsware
Kineticsware is a rapidly growing provider of trade promotion management software for consumer goods manufacturers and distributors.Kineticsware's full lifecycle TPM solutions address top prioritiesfor improving profitability such as increasing operationalefficiency, improving customer profitability, effectiveness oftrade spending, reducing deduction liability, and loweringtransportation costs. For more information, visit www.kineticsware.com .