* Gain more confidence presenting & communicating
* “Fear-busting” – losing the barriers & defences that hold you back
* Interactive, exercise-based training
* Working with a video camera & playback for maximum learning
* Tailored and relevant exercises e.g. roleplays etc
* NIDA –trained tutor  with international experience and FMCG understanding

Training is designed to optimise the presentation and communication skills of your team and is highly interactive and exercise-based.

Modules are either presented as half-day sessions, or full-day workshops with two modules combined in one day.
1. Presentation Foundations
2. Creative Presentations
3. Voice & Body
4. Communication & Personal Style
Presentation Foundations is the first course preceding all other optional modules. All courses involve the use of video camera & playback and group exercises

Presentation Skills Training is generally offered in the context of broader training programs including Retailer Negotiation Skills, Category Management, Retailer Category Presentations and a wide range of customised, specific training for companies.

The training involves:

INTERACTIVE GAMES

• Fear-busting & confidence
• Communication reflexes
• Flexibility & responsiveness
• Accessing the right brain / creative side
• Using memory in presentation

TOOLS & TECHNIQUES

• Voice & speech
• Body – language & gestures, movement
• Presence
• Communication
• Confidence building
• Mental focus & fear-busting
• Tips for ongoing practice

WORK TO CAMERA

• Amplifies areas of strength and of need
• Enables participant to view themselves for maximum learning
• 360 degree feedback mechanism
• Challenging and fun group work / role plays
• Relevant presentations e.g. elevator pitch

CUSTOMISED DEVELOPMENT

• Individual participants
• Tools & tecnhiques tailored to individual needs
• Take-away materials
• Access to video footage (reference)
• Customised ongoing programs where appropriate (separate scope)

About the Trainer: Lee McAllistair

* As a NIDA –trained presenter and performer Lee has worked internationally across multiple live and recorded communication mediums including television and radio (UK and Australia) and  as a live presenter / performer in the UK, Asia and around Australia.
* In addition to her NIDA training Lee holds a Masters in Communication Management, holds more than 10 years’ senior marketing & FMCG experience and is a founding member of ShopAbility for the past four years.
* Her marketing work has won industry awards including the Australian Marketing
Institute, Public Relations Institute of Australia and she has consulted to clients
including Coca Cola, Sony Pictures, Blackmores, National Foods
and Foster’s Group.
• Lee’s performing work has earned her favourable reviews in UK and
Asian press, having performed at major events including a sold-out five week
season at the largest Festival in the world, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe
(generally known in the Industry as “the slaughterhouse” for how
unforgiving it can be to performers).
• In a presentation training capacity, Lee’s focus is on pushing through
the inevitable fears associated with presenting and communicating to
others, using interactive exercises and the “great amplifier” of all fears:
A video camera.

For all Training and Company Capability program enquiries please call Peter Huskins on 0412 574 793 or peter@shop-ability.com.au

By Peter Huskins for Retail World Magazine.

Rather than write about the theories and well trodden path of Relationships in general, I’d like to frame this article more about challenging you to identify what capabilities and competencies matter to you and your business when you are managing your Customer relationships NOW. We all know, and have been trained in our careers, about Customer management and how to influence the sale. We know we need a win/ win relationship, good networks across our Customer’s business and a reputation for trust, confidentiality and achievement.

But how do you measure how good you really are, and how good you want to be?

In our last article on Scorecarding Your Business, Norrelle mentioned the importance of key factors in building and using a Scorecard. One specific area of competence that was identified was Customer Engagement – read Relationship Management.

But what does it mean in a Scorecard context and then in an application context? Measuring and assessing performance on a Company or Individual level is one thing, but the ability to transform a relationship into a powerful partnership focussed on joint growth and profitability is quite another challenge.

Being able to adequately assess the capability of your business (and of individuals) to manage Customer Engagement, in other words Relationship Management, is a critical first step in understanding if it is a core strength that can be leveraged, or an underlying weakness that needs development. A thoughtfully developed Scorecard also allows for future re-assessment that enables progress to be measured and fine tuning to take place.

So let’s look at the basic framework around Customer Engagement and the possible criteria to look at if want to apply a specific lens to this fundamental discipline, what we call

The 5 R’s of a Relationship

Relevant – Rigorous – Respect – Resourceful – Right Time

We believe these are the key competencies and capabilities that Customer facing people need to have and use when they engage with their Customer. They also apply to functions that may not have direct day to day responsibility for Relationship Management but in many instances their decisions or actions have a direct impact on a Customer…and someone else has to sort out the mess.

The next time a Brand decision is taken in apparent isolation to the Sales function, and to the bewilderment of a Retail Customer, will not be the last! Likewise the next time a promotional price point is promoted to the bewilderment of both Sales and Marketing will not be the last! These are the day to day challenges of managing a Relationship, both external and internal.

Now let’s expand on these 5 R words, using other words that hopefully will strike a chord and assist in building your own Scorecard and identifying areas of improvement for your Customer Relationships:

1. Relevant – how appropriate and significant you and your Company are in your dealings with your Customer.
Words like current knowledge (of the Category), product and competitors, store conscious, future focussed, clear and concise, objective, informative, KPI driven, cost conscious or low cost come to mind

2. Rigorous -  how thorough and accurate you are in managing your Customer’s business
Focussed, applied, consistent, curious, speedy, interested, targeted, well planned, analytical and diagnostic are good descriptors

3. Respect – is there a high mutual admiration and opinion of each other?
Committed to the Retailer, single minded focus internally, your Customer’s champion, loyal, flexible,

4. Resourceful – how practical yet creative you are?
Being different, exclusive, innovative, imaginative, knowledgeable, strategic, whole of business,

5. Right time – balancing a sense of urgency with timeliness and applicability
Urgent, available, timely, opportune, sensible and appropriate.

Now it should be a fairly simple exercise to identify the words you would like to use to fashion into this table featuring the 5 x R’s (or another set of key words/ titles that you would like to use to benchmark your business)

There is a level of complexity and thought that needs to be applied to develop a ‘fair’ scaling methodology to the Scorecard. By scaling, I mean what does good – better – best look like for Relationship Management? The words and phrases must describe exactly what you mean for each level of Relationship Management, and these may vary by Company based on the emphasis you place on these from a strategic sense as well as an application sense.

The best and most engaging way to do it is to develop what you believe best describes each scale for the Scorecard and then distribute the draft around to key people in the business asking for their input and amendments.

Sometimes you hear that it is an easy solution to “ask your Retail Customer” however in reality it is a lot more difficult than that. Different Buyers in different categories within the same Retail company have different hot buttons. Some KPI’s and business strategies will be the same however each Category (read Buyers) is unique. Also the ability to be able to benchmark against your peers is beneficial as strategic and tactical opportunities are frequently highlighted.

Everyone has days where everything just seems to go wrong – think about asking a Buyer to candidly rate your business the day after a particularly heavy negotiation session over Trading Terms or a competitor’s hot promotional price point, note the word ‘candidly’. Of course they will be distracted, the outcome of your business rating will be dependent on the success (or not) of the previous day.

Strategically some companies also wish to excel in some areas and not in others, much like the alternatives offered in The Discipline of Market Leaders (Treacy & Wiersema) where one of either Operational Excellence, Product Leadership or Customer Intimacy are selected as the core strategic Company capability. Your chosen discipline is the driver for your business, one that you master vs your Competitors, however the model requires at least normal/ average capability in the other two disciplines in order for the chosen model to succeed.

If you do wish to pursue the Customer Intimacy model, the key indicators are:

* Deliver to specific Customer needs, not broad market requirements
* Know the people you sell to & exactly what products & services they need
* Continually tailor products & services at reasonable prices
* Customer loyalty is a key asset; cultivate Relationships rather than pursue transactions
* Give the Customer more than they expect, constantly upgrading offerings
* Consider Customers a lifetime value, not just profit & loss on a few transactions
* Tailored mix of services or customized products; using 3rd parties to supplement internal activities
* Obsession with solution development, results management, and relationship management

The above descriptors also provide a neat alternative to use in the Customer Relationship Scorecard as well.

The overall message here is do not try to be all things to all people, select your Customer Relationship criteria and scaling methodology and  then strongly measure and apply it, as the capabilities and competencies you design for your business must become a key strength in your relationship with your Retail Customer.

Relationship management is not all one sided, although it may definitely appear to be the case sometimes. The ability to see over the seemingly large immediate issues and then be able to contextualise for the benefit of a sound on-going relationship is the key – and that works both ways!

The FMCG Sustainability Institute (FSI) is pleased to be able to offer accredited Green Skills Training to businesses who seek to increase the sustainability knowledge and skills of their people. Courses are heavily subsided by State and Federal funding – depending on circumstances by up to 90% -  and certificate of attainment is issued on satisfactory completion of the courses.  Currently FSI offer a 1 day Introduction to Sustainability in the Workplace and a 4 day Green Skills for Business Sustainability program (This course provides the knowledge and skills to develop workplace policy and procedures for sustainability and is part of the Business Sustainability- Diploma Unit).

More information on the FSI website HERE

By ShopAbility for Retail Pharmacy Magazine

Last article we talked about how you decide what things to range, taking into account your competitive strategy and shopper types, and concepts such as category weighting, segmentation, depth, and breath.

We looked at how to determine what your range should be at a total store level.

This time around let’s take this thinking one step further and look at how to make the most of your existing range within a given category, now that you’ve established what it should be.

What is Efficient Assortment?

Otherwise known as ‘Range Optimisation’ or ‘Range Rationalisation’, Efficient Assortment ‘right sizes’ your range in a given category based on the top selling products either or both of volume and value terms, and as measured against stock turn velocity and return on inventory.

Why is Efficient Assortment Important?

You might have the deepest or broadest range, or the most high margin products, but not all of it is necessarily moving or worth a lot to you.
Efficient Assortment helps you get best bang for buck from your available space for a given category, because it ensures you’re ranging the top selling and fastest moving products and minimizing space wastage on slow movers.

Which ‘level’ is Efficient Assortment performed at?

‘Efficient Assortment’ is normally performed at Category level, involving individual products and SKUs (see Fig 1). Traditionally, category segments, individual brands and unique SKUs are secondary considerations.

How it works – the 80/20 rule

You’ve heard of the 80/20 rule, otherwise known as the Pareto Principle.  Traditional Efficient Assortment uses the Pareto Principle to determine how many SKUs (individual products – stock keeping units) are worth 80% of category sales (the 80% analysis should be done for both volume and value).

Anything over the 80% line is called the ‘tail’. Anything that is in the Tail, unless it performs a unique role or is of high value, is ripe for rationalization – particularly if it duplicates the functionality of a product in the top 80%.

Below is an example Cumulative SKU graph (in both volume and value) for Category X. This kind of cumulative graph can be done very simply in an Excel spreadsheet, drawing from your sales data/point of sale system.
In Figure 2, the category is a sparse one (as opposed to dense one) because only a small number of SKUs make up the Top 80%. In this example there is a long tail.

Docking the Tail

The fastest way to shorten the tail is to ‘deduplicate’ it.
This simply means looking at the products in the tail and determining which ones have an identical function or role to their counterparts in the Top 80%.
In the Figure 2 example, though, there may not be many duplications as there are so few products making up the Top 80%.
So if they’re not duplicate products, how else can you determine what should go from the tail?

Return on Inventory

Look at what’s in the tail and what it’s worth to you – not just from a gross margin perspective on an individual item, but its stock turn rates.  You can’t bank margin – there’s no point ranging something that gives you 60% margin if you only sell one item a year unless it’s an extremely high $ value item. 60% of nothing is still nothing.
What we’re referring to here is GMROI – gross margin return on inventory. Using GMROI, a product with a lower margin but a high stock turn rate might actually be netting you more $ than a higher margin product that isn’t moving.

So in looking at the ‘tail’ in your category, have a look at the margins of the individual products versus their velocity – both hurdle rates (units per store per week) and annual stock inventory.
Products that are in the tail that are two or more of a) duplicates of something else b) low margin and c) low stock turn, should be the first cabs off the rank to be rationalized.

But make sure you don’t leave home without …

… checking what’s missing.
A traditional Efficient Assortment analysis tells you what to delete, but not what to range (which was the focus of the first article).  The 80/20 method of range rationalization looks at individual SKU contributions, but doesn’t look at coverage or unique needs.
So in doing an Efficient Assortment analysis, and looking at your Top 80%, you also need to keep in mind the following:

• Category coverage: Do my Top 80% skus cover most or all of the needs of the category?
• Segment coverage: Do my Top 80% skus represent products from each Segment of the category? Or are there products in the Tail that fulfill this function?
• Unique skus: are any of the products in the Tail a unique SKU that fulfills a special need and therefore can’t be deleted?
• New products: are any of the products in the Tail newly introduced (ie in the past 6 months)?

To mitigate the newness factor, Efficient Assortment analysis needs to be done on a quarterly or 6 monthly basis so you can track the progress of new product introductions and their potential entry into the Top 80% – ie to track trends rather than just dipstick one point in time.

So I’ve done my analysis, now what?

Once you’ve done your analysis you need to put the results into action instore. This might include:

• Out with the Old: Sell through (via special, promotion or other mechanic) or return the items in the tail that you’ve decided to rationalize (working with suppliers on how best to do this)
• Go with the Goers: Put a plan in place for how you will better support the products in the Top 80%. Decide whether you will focus on further supporting your Top 20% of skus or whether you will put focus on growing and improving the SKUs that sit between the 20% and 80% marks. This might include facing them up (giving them more facings on shelf), since you’ve now got more space to play with, or things like point of sale at the fixture and consumer promotions.

In summary: why you should look at Efficient Assortment

You might need to do an Efficient Assortment exercise on a category if you answer yes to one or more of the following:
1. You have a number of products that perform the same functions
2. You have a lot of products for a category but not enough space and you need to get rid of some
3. You don’t know which products are your top sellers and/or bottom performers
4. You are spending time and money promoting products that you suspect aren’t moving.

We’ve talked a bit here about the role of space on range. Next issue we’ll look at how to think about laying out a category and the products in it in more detail.

In the meantime, we welcome feedback on these articles – what you agree with, what you don’t – and what you’d like to hear about. Email us with feedback on enquiries@sh-opportunity.com.au

1. Avoiding duplication and inefficiency
2. Providing clarity, direction and inspiration to the existing workforce
3. Keeping the company AND the people within it developing with a view for the longer term.

Here’s some tips on how.

The Sales vs Marketing Conundrum

One of the most common things we hear is ‘Marketing don’t talk to Sales, and Sales don’t talk to Marketing’. This ‘great divide’ causes all sorts of problems.

For example, Sales is primarily concerned with the retail customer, and Marketing with the consumer / end user. So who is looking after the shopper? As we probably don’t need to state, they’re often not the same person (think pet food, children’s products, and ‘buying for others’ in general).

‘Who is looking after the shopper?’ is a great place to start when reviewing your organisational structure. Having a ‘Shopper Marketing’ function that represents the voice of the shopper makes a lot of sense. To be effective, it needs to report in at the same level as Marketing and Sales. So that you have the Retailer (Sales), the Consumer (Marketing) and the Shopper (Shopper Marketing) equally represented in decision-making. Ideally, you would co-locate all these functions so they HAVE to talk to each other, and schedule regular planning and work in progress meetings for all three teams together.

Where would Trade Marketing sit, then? Ideally it would sit under Shopper Marketing, given that Shopper behaviour insight is necessary to determine effective point of purchase solutions. It would also need close relationships with Sales for the Retailer perspective and Marketing for the brand perspective.

More and more leading organizations are restructuring to include a dedicated Shopper Marketing function so that the voice of the Shopper influences planning in the same manner as that of the Consumer and the Retailer. This kind of structure can also assist with reducing confusion and duplication among sales and marketing functions.

‘People accounting’ in the era of lean (but not mean)

The current climate is requiring many companies to review which functions, roles and people are critical, versus those who are not.

To avoid making subjective decisions about this, it is helpful to have an exceedingly clear picture of the performance criteria for each role in the organisation, and how this contributes to the whole.

Ideally, every role has more than KPIs -  a clear scorecarding system is required. Scorecards for every role enable objectivity in reviewing current performance as well as development, and provide clarity of communication and expectations. Scorecards also identify clearly where a person is not progressing along their development roadmap, and when they are going faster than the company is and therefore require more support.

Furthermore, the whole organisation needs a scorecard based on its core critical functions, with a clear indication as to where each role fits in. Developing such a scorecard can sometimes identify where duplication and inefficiency are occurring, and where roles can merge or become defunct.

Ultimately, ‘people accounting’ is as important as traditional accounting, because one directly affects the other!

Keeping morale on the up and up

It’s a well used statement that in every downturn there is opportunity for some, and the same thing applies internally to your teams.

Whilst some roles may be considered ‘surplus’, that can ultimately mean fast-track development for others.

For each person / role in whom the company decides to continue investment, a personalized roadmap for development needs to be created. Where the scorecard provides clarity about performance against expectations, the roadmap provides crystal clarity on mutually agreed development goals and how success in achieving them is measured.

A development roadmap can be a highly motivating way to push through tough times with goals in mind, seizing on the opportunities created by restructuring to create a more flexible, versatile, highly skilled team that is offered variety and ongoing development support.

There are many ways to optimize the business in a downturn, but to recap on three key measures:

1. Review your Sales and Marketing functions and consider whether the Shopper is adequately represented (because ultimately it’s the Shopper who drives topline growth!)
2. Implement a clear scorecarding system for the company as a whole and for each function, to determine what is critical versus not critical, and where inefficiencies exist
3. Ensure your people have clear, motivational development roadmaps to encourage a flexible and versatile workforce in an era where spanning across multiple roles and responsibilities may be required.

‘Development plans’, or lack of them, are one of the most often-cited reasons for good people to move on from a company and seek greener pastures. Capability and skills development are items that regularly fall to the bottom of the priority list, swamped by day-to-day concerns.

Yet good capability roadmaps deliver value for organisations as well as individuals. A highly skilled, versatile team that takes ownership of its contribution towards the profitability of the business is an asset that pays dividends to the bottom line every day.

But what does a good capability roadmap look like and how do you implement one?

Know your destination

What knowledge and skills does your team need in order to achieve maximum performance? What does an ideal capability and skills checklist look like?

Some thought starters to get you going:

• Do you need your teams to understand and apply shopper behaviour knowledge in strategy making?
• Gain a greater understanding of what makes retailers tick and how to negotiate?
• Is it best practice in-store marketing principles you need your people to apply?
• Do you need to standardise what ‘brand marketing’ actually means and ensure that your marketers know how to do it with excellence?
• Or does your focus need to be on processes and tools everyone can use for cross-functional communication and teamwork?
• Category or channel strategy know-how?
• Range, space, pricing and promotions analysis and reviews?

There are many areas for development (shameless self-plug here – Shopportunity has comprehensive capability roadmaps across the whole gamut of FMCG skill sets and departments, and also develops tailored programs from scratch. OK that’s done – ‘nuff said). The challenge here is to prioritise which are the most important capabilities and skills first. Which leads to our next point.

Link your roads

Ultimately a successful capability roadmap needs a context rather than attempt to exist in isolation. It needs to be book-ended by your other programs and linked to any other training (external or internal) your people undertake.

It also needs to directly relate to performance KPIs and scorecards (or the KPIs and scorecards need to be updated to include content from the capability roadmap).

You will probably find, once you have prioritised which are the most important skills your team needs to have, that there are still a number of different areas. It may be that each of these areas needs its own roadmap, and these are all linked together in an ongoing program of learning.

Use signposts

Furthermore, within each area there are likely to be different levels – skill number 9 relies on knowledge about number 3 and so forth.

So a good roadmap will take a specific focus area and create learning for a team across a number of levels over time. For example:

1. Introductory – an orientation and context to make sure the basics are covered (it’s surprising how many times they’re not because it’s always ‘assumed’)
2. Core – the fundamental things people need to know
3. Intermediate – the capabilities and skills required to move from ‘adequate’ to ‘competent’
4. Advanced – higher level skills and thinking to move towards ‘excellence’
5. Leading Edge – ahead of the curve thinking for maximum competitive advantage

Along the way, ‘signposts’ recognise achievement and knowledge gained. Signposts for each of the five levels can help participants acknowledge their own learning process. Checklists for each level can help them to revise and ensure they know how to apply everything they’ve learned. And, back to ‘link your roads’ – this needs to be reflected in KPIs and scorecards.

Avoid dead ends and one way streets

A good capability roadmap allows for maximum interaction and engagement. It offers a high degree of clarity about ‘the way we do things’, but it is not about ‘lecturing’. In fact, people that come in to your company with knowledge and skills gained elsewhere may also have contributions to make to the roadmap itself – so it becomes a two-way continuous improvement process for the company and the individual.

A clear capability roadmap also helps you avoid getting buried down rabbit warrens with your people. When you have already agreed on your destination, what the most important ‘big ticket’ items are to achieve your business goals and how to get there (the roadmap), you won’t be tempted to waste time, money and resources on learning programs and ‘pet projects’ that don’t achieve your strategic objectives.

Focus needs to always be on what will deliver maximum impact to the business.

Know what ‘getting there’ looks like

Signposts along the way are handy, but how do you know when you’ve reached your destination? You need a picture of what your destination looks like, and a way to measure and review on an ongoing basis that you are still there.

A good capability roadmap will include ‘pictures’ of success for future reference.

For more information about ShopAbility’s capability roadmap programs, contact Peter Huskins on 0412 574 793 peter@shop-ability.com.au for sales training programs, or Norrelle Goldring on 0411 735 190 norrelle@shop-ability.com.au for shopper marketing, brand marketing and insights training programs.

For Retail World Magazine, May 08

It may not be a new trend, but it’s still one of the biggest factors holding back FMCG suppliers from achieving business potential – a lack of internal alignment amongst Marketing, Sales, Category and Field Teams. How to get these silo functions ‘singing from the same hymn book’ is a conundrum for many FMCGs, and the focus of this article.

Common catch cries:

‘The Marketing team is a roadblock. They don’t get in store. They don’t understand what the Retailer wants, trading terms and the implications or how a store operates”

‘The Sales team only care about achieving short-term sales targets. They don’t get the bigger brand and product positioning story, or the personality of our brand.’

And Category and Field teams don’t feel like they are understood by either.

And the bigger issue: who is looking after the Shopper?

The Shopper is the person who actually makes the BUY decision at shelf and is the last person we have an opportunity to “talk to” before an item is put into a basket – hopefully our item!

The Shopper may not necessarily be the Consumer – think pet food, kids cereal, fem hygiene, men’s deodorant, hot and cold beverages, vitamins and supplements….and the list goes on.

So how is this really important person usually recognized in our internal structures, processes, procedures and most importantly accountabilities?

Marketing is usually focused on Consumer, Sales on the Customer/ Retailer. The traditional Trade Marketing role is intended to own the Shopper, but is usually the buck-stops-here point of contact for all sorts of other loosely aligned reporting and tactical initiatives that leaves little time to think strategically about our Shopper response.

There might be an embryonic ‘Shopper Insights’ department (headed up by a person who has had to shift from Consumer insights or sales to Shopper insights with no additional training by the company). But nobody to actually direct Shopper strategy or implement Shopper-focused initiatives.

What to do?

1. Consider Structure Optimisation

It could be that your traditional teams and their reporting structures are no longer effective for your changing needs.
For example, some leading FMCGs have created a department that is ‘Shopper’. It is on the same level as Marketing and Sales, reporting in to the GM or MD.
Another example is to implement Category teams populated by the relevant Marketing, Shopper and Sales team members.

These examples achieve three things:
a) Ensure that Shoppers as well as Consumers are considered in the strategic decision-making process
b) Create a bridge between Marketing and Sales, improving alignment
c) Ensures a clear focus on the in-store element of the path to purchase.

These are a couple of examples of how to restructure to refocus – not for the sake of it but to change your business approach to include the Shopper in all strategic decisions.
The most important factor is the true function each team is currently performing, whether it is the optimum function for the business, and what, at a higher level, actually needs to be achieved and therefore how the business should be structured to support that objective.

Things to consider when looking at your Structure Optimisation:

1. How/ where is your current business structured to include the Shopper?
2. Assess the overall internal alignment of the different silos
3. Compare Roles across the business to identify insight gaps.
2. Skills Assessment

Have you changed people’s roles, titles and expectations without giving full consideration to their skill sets?

This can become a major source of stress to both company and team members.

For example, the bevy of new ‘Shopper Insights’ roles that have miraculously appeared without adequate training provided to support the new roles. And the growth of Trade Marketing into increasingly complex analysis and forecasting, again without adequate upskilling.

And one of the biggest issues: Marketing people are expected to know all about Shopper when it currently is not even on the radar of most traditional marketing schools and training grounds, leaving a big knowledge gap that can be behind the ‘roadblocks’ the Sales department complain about.

When reviewing internal alignment, it helps to conduct a thorough, supportive (non- threatening) skills assessment of the relevant staff.

Things to consider when undertaking skills assessments:

1. What are the current outputs and deliverables by silo?
2. What are the duplications and unnecessary outputs?
3. Where to reallocate responsibilities if necessary?
4. How do I identify best practice for my business? This will depend also on how ‘best practice’ I want to be.
3. Training

Roadblocks to internal alignment and getting things done amongst multiple silo functions are often about people feeling threatened. Because they’re supposed to know something they don’t (because nobody has told them or trained them in it!), so they stick to what they know in order to feel comfortable and appear competent.

This ultimately holds the company back.

Tailored approaches are needed for each team, and the personalities within the team, to harness the potential for alignment.

Things to consider when conducting team training:
1. Clearly assess current Company and individual skill capabilities and competencies – where are my gaps?
2. Use a template or roadmap for training that ensures a consistent flow and sequence of subject matter
3. Match the required skills to the Role, Job Description and review process.

4. Culture

Culture, for the purpose of this article, can be defined as ‘how the members of a company experience it’.

Often, in FMCGs with alignment issues, that experience can be fraught with turf wars, impenetrable alliances and the careful navigation of internal politics before any single initiative gets off the ground.

That, in turn, results in all those good ideas and strategies sitting on a shelf or being dumped in the ‘too hard’ basket.

Some things to consider to improve your alignment through culture:

1. Co-locate functions that need to work better together.
The classic example is Sales and Marketing. As exampled above, some of the better integrated companies have put Sales, Marketing and Category all on the one floor in an open space. They have to talk and understand the issues other roles must contend with!

2. Musical chairs

It’s an oldie but a goodie: ask people to step into others’ roles for a day (‘walk a mile in the other man’s shoes’) to gain better understanding. A really important one is to get the Marketing people out in field. Get them to see how their brands are brought to life (or not) in the instore environment, and how their brands are being sold by the sales team to retail customers. If Marketing staff aren’t out in field at least once a month, they risk being ivory tower theorists.
Ensure that Marketing co-present that all-important new line to the Retail Customer, not just to get feedback on their creation, but also to start to understand what, when and if their earth-shattering new line will actually get the acceptance and subsequent shelf space that was expected.
If not, what went wrong?
If accepted, how can I use those learnings to make sure the next new line I submit is just as successful?

3. Similarly, ask Sales people to deliver their thoughts on the long term brand building strategy (3–5 years). And so on. The point here is that the company has to invest in enough ‘downtime’ to allow staff to do this i.e. it needs to be seen as valuable time spent.

4. Assign an Account sales problem to another area of the business for a ‘blue sky’ solution. This forces research and understanding of the other functions’ issues and solution frameworks, and the only place to get the answers is from the people who currently do the role. Again they have to talk and understand the issues other roles must contend with.
You may well be surprised with the result!

5. Category Vision

An interesting question to ask a round table of 10 of your senior executives drawn from across your business:
“What is our Category Vision and what are the key elements I would expect to see in store?”

Most companies would generate certainly over 6, and up to 10 different answers to that simple question.

Why? In most instances there is not a single aligned Company approach that has been developed across the different silos, so that each is subtly and without intent, working against the other.

It is critical that your Company speaks with the one voice with your approach to in store marketing – the impacts are clearly evident to your Retail Customer and may just be the reason why your competitor is considered the thought leader and overall category driver – regardless of market share, promotional spend or rolled up margin.

The fact is that better internal alignment enables a more strategic approach to developing your categories and therefore your business, less time navigating politics, better skilled staff with higher morale, all leading to increased sales due to a stronger end-to-end offer.

Most important is the single business focus that is initiated – one Company one voice.

So, time to empty the silos and critically review your structure!

For more information about ShopAbility’s capability and training services, please contact Peter Huskins on 0412 574 793 or peter@shop-ability.com.au

#1 Know your Retail Partner

An in-depth understanding of each account – each Retailer’s ‘hot buttons’, is important to develop a model for creating mutual value.

How much do you know about your key accounts? Do you know:

• Their strategic direction and how that parallels your Company (or not)
• Key financial data – how are they performing?
• Basket and scan data – who is buying what, there and how much of it?
• Category performance metrics
• Stock turns – what is moving, what’s hot?
• KPIs and trade maths – how are they measuring success?
• What are their key issues and objectives – how can you help?

Knowing your Retail partner enables you to develop proposals from a Retailer perspective that are still consistent with your own organisational goals. So, how do you obtain this information if you don’t already have it? See #8: Trade Relationships.

#2 Integrate your Strategic Planning Process

By ‘integration’ here, we mean ensuring your annual planning process is both top down and Customer up.
Your planning process needs to:

• Be informed by comprehensive consultation with your Retail partners
• Include Customer objectives by category
• Reflect joint objectives and KPIS for all brand activity and NPD in both the Company and Customer Business Development Plan targets

By writing your Customer’s objectives and KPIs into your strategic plans along with your own, you are ensuring that as you meet your own targets, you meet your Customer targets as well, building relationships and value for the longer term.

#3 Know your Category

Increasingly, Retailers are looking to suppliers for in-depth category understanding and leadership. This can present an excellent opportunity to drive growth for both parties. So what does knowing your category look like?

• A comprehensive knowledge of category dynamics of your own and all other competitive or complementary store departments, including fresh
• The ability to identify gaps and opportunities for Category Development (the next phase to category management) based on this knowledge
• A focus on creating and presenting options that are totally consistent with Retailers and Company strategies, policies and category goals

Having a bird’s eye view of all store departments in addition to your own helps build credibility with the Retailer and leads to realistic and informed strategies for growth and category development that fit in with the ‘bigger picture’.

# 4 Know your Shopper

How much do you really understand about Shoppers for your category and brand / product portfolio? Shopper insights are a Retail hot button, and you need to know which insights to leverage for the most Retailer and category benefit, not just your own brand.

This particular topic is a book in itself, but some key things to think about include:

• What the shopper missions are for your category (these are not the same as the consumption occasions)
• The difference between each mission, including the categories found in different types of shopping missions
• Likely shopper profiles in your category
• Category sales drivers and purchase decision hierarchy (e.g. price may not be a priority sales driver for your particular product and shopper research that proves this can help build your case with Retailers for different in store execution)
• Triggers and barriers to purchase in store

By knowing your shopper, you can build plans for growth that optimize the opportunities for both you and your Retail partner.

# 5 Know your Supply Chain

How effective is your current supply chain arrangement from the Retailer’s point of view as well as your own? How well do you know the Retailer’s supply chain strategy? Things the Retailer may look for from you:

• A clear supply chain strategy with processes that are well communicated
• Customer service levels monitored on a daily basis
• Diligence in meeting standards and influencing Out of Stocks

Knowing your supply chain enhances your ability to leverage high performance to your (and the Retailer’s) advantage.

# 6 Power to your People

Some FMCG companies overlook the need for operating authority by members of the Account Management team. If you are not confident in their skillsets, then the focus needs to be on training and increasing skills rather than diminishing authority.

To create relationships of mutual benefit, individuals need to be empowered and encouraged to negotiate to the same degree as the Retailer contact. Your people also need to know how to use this authority to advantage in gaining trade-offs in the process.

# 7 Company-wide Trade Relationships

Whilst it can be a challenging process, successful suppliers have developed an open partnership style with each major Retailer. Achieving this involves:

• A strong network of contacts up and down and across the Retailer functions
• Top to Top contacts being leveraged to develop and enhance Company performance and reputation
• A culture that is comfortable with change to obtain a win / win result

By spreading the relationship across multiple levels and functions, you help to reduce the reliance on one particular contact or contacts that may be a roadblock to the relationship.

# 8 Be a Responsive Partner

This one seems like a ‘hygiene factor’ but is surprisingly often overlooked. Everyone is busy – you, your Retail partners, your supply chain – everybody. It’s never an excuse for tardy responsiveness. To optimize your Retailer relationships:

• Ensure your whole company fully understands the importance of responding to Retailer’s questions and doing so in a timely and professional manner, and that this is embedded into performance measures
• Ensure your systems and processes are up to date and fully utilised
• Focus on direct, transparent contact where the background to the response is clearly explained and a way forward is mutually agreed with the Retailer

Often, the quality of your response in a trying situation can serve to actually build and strengthen your relationship in the longer term.

# 9 Horses for Courses

The importance of account specific planning cannot be underestimated. Positioning yourself as a strategic supplier / partner involves:

• Working towards an agreed joint Customer Business Development Plan and KPI’s for each customer – each created in a highly individualistic way for each Retailer
• Each plan also consistent with the Company’s marketing plan with a focus on addressing each Retailer’s “Hot Buttons”

In this way, the Retailer’s success is measured along with yours, and you can demonstrate mutual value as the foundation for future growth.

# 10 Collaborative Category Reviews

Transparent, objective and thorough category reviews can go a long way to building better Retailer relationships. Key factors:

• The category plan is carefully evaluated from a wide range of perspectives
• Reasons for success or failure are carefully noted and factually summarised
• This evaluation is then presented to the Retailers for their input
• The focus of the review is on new strategic options and modifications for the next planning cycle. 20% rear view mirror and 80% looking forward should be the rule of thumb.

Your category review process will also feed in to your longer term category vision and development plan, creating a feedback loop that allows your development plan to continue to evolve and adapt as the market changes.

# 11 Communication & Information Sharing

This one is the acid test of where your relationships are at versus where you want them to be. Do you have:

• Regular internal full and open cross functional discussions?
• Strategic sessions with Retailers on a category by category basis to discuss Company and Retailer aspirations as the ‘norm’?
• Are both parties are prepared to share sensitive information and plans?

Strong Account Management capability is a whole-of-company issue, rather than restricted to the job descriptions of a select few. Creating mutual value and improving the quality of the Retailer relationship is possible with a clear picture of what best practice looks like, what is still needed to achieve it, and a practical development roadmap to get there.

For more information about ShopAbility company and people capability development contact Peter Huskins on 0412 574 793, visit our CAPABILITY & TRAINING page or contact us via enquiries@shop-ability.com.au