business intelligence
There are 13 entries for the tag
business intelligence
By John Nicholas
Answers Systems corporate offices are in Oldsmar, Florida. We have a secondary office and a Tier 4 data center in Chattanooga, TN. We also maintain a field sales office in Evansville, Indiana.
ContractPro® is our contract management solution for food manufacturers. We support the management of their agreements with distributors and operators.
ContractPro® provides foodservice professionals with a high tech, online solution that allows users to input, approve, and track the performance of their distributor and bid/ chain operator agreements.
Our value proposition is pretty simple, we do not allow the payment of invalid claims. For tenured clients,...
Recently Kristin Avery sat down with John Nicholas to have a conversation about his recent Top2Top experience.
1. In a 100 words or less, what is Top2Top?
Top2Top is an annual conference sponsored by FSMA (Foodservice Sales & Marketing Association). Top2Top is a chance for Brokers/Agencies to come together around issues that are critical to their business. It also allows attendees the opportunity to stay up-to-date on current trends and to hear concerns within the Agency community.
2. What year did you start attending Top2Top?
I started attending Top2Top in 2005.
3. What was different about Top2Top 2011 than Top2Top...
By John Nicholas
There is a harsh truth for every food manufacturer. If you can’t see down into your business, eventually, you will lose your business! It might be a gradual loss, but you can’t manage something that you can’t see. Successful foodservice manufacturers must gain greater visibility into their supply chain.
This increased visibility can be a scary thing! If you have been bleeding for a long time, when you first expose the wound, it can look pretty ugly. One of the main obstacles to successfully managing trade spending is fear of the unknown. Many people are afraid to know...
By Kevin Hart
Several weeks ago I viewed the online launch of Microsoft Lync 2010. Lync is part of Office 365, formerly Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), and it helps businesses enhance productivity by delivering an integrated communication experience (think Instant Messaging and Presence, audio/video/web conferencing, and enterprise software-based Voice over IP).
During this online product launch, one of the Microsoft VP’s, describing Lync, stated that today’s productivity equals unified communication, enterprise search, collaboration, content management, and business intelligence (BI). This is a common theme from Microsoft and echoes similar messaging from their earlier Future of Productivity delivery regarding Office 2010,...
Posted by Tom Tipps
Price “waterfalling” seems a fairly simple process that deals with the tracking of various revenue reductions/deductions as a product travels through distribution to its ultimate destination… the end-user.
The waterfalling process supports the identification of cost-cutting/margin enhancement opportunities…typically in a company’s go-to-market model.
Posted by Jennifer Grumbling
In an economy where every single dollar counts, it is more important than ever to track your spending. Not only is it important to track spending as an everyday consumer, but also for your business. In the foodservice industry when it comes to rebate and compliance performance management for chain operators, aligning the purchasing habits with purchasing agreements for a multi-chain unit can become a difficult mountain to climb.
So what exactly is involved in
Have you ever wondered how a company like Answers Systems prioritizes software enhancements or major client/corporate initiatives are? Like many other businesses, we employ the Project Management Office (PMO) concept.
At the top of the PMO Governance document, you will find the following quote: “The PMO’s function is not to make people work, but to make it possible for people to work.” This applies in a couple of ways:
Posted by Stacy Jackson
While at work this morning, I had one of those random memories pass through my mind. It was of a scene from Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. You may remember this part where Slartibartfast (crazy name, huh?) tells Arthur Dent about a race of super-intelligent, pan-dimensional beings who built Deep Thought, a supercomputer designed to calculate the answer to “the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.” Much to the beings’ dismay, Deep
I was struck recently by a Wall Street Journal article about Starbucks. It highlighted Scott Heydon, “vice president of lean thinking,” and a student of Toyota’s efficiency manufacturing processes. Mr. Heydon’s job is to find money by re-engineering various business models. One of his recent onsite studies reduced drive-through transactions by two seconds. Another streamlined customer service by an hour-and-a-half per week. Mr Heydon’s strategies include the use of a stopwatch and a Mr. Potato H
The ContractPro® Community is a dynamic, collaborative group consisting of foodservice manufacturers, brokers, distributors, operators, and the Answers Systems team. All of these entities work together within the Community to achieve a common goal that benefits each party: best-practice trade promotion and contract management.
Like all environments, the ContractPro Community evolves and grows based on the changing demands and opportunities presented by clients, constituents, and clients’ cu
Trade Promotion Management (TPM) is a term inherited from the retail/CPG side of the business.
The retail guys developed the processes/controls and channel relationships supporting the actual management of their huge trade budgets. Note here that “manage” is a verb that hints of action, which, in the context of trade promotion management is dependent on knowledge.
In the Foodservice sector, “management” of trade promotions has been elusive for decades. We were the “stepchild” in most comp
by Greg Hilton
In this series on problem solving frameworks we are taking a look at solving problems using methods learned from the book, The McKinsey Way by Ethan M. Rasiel. If you are checking in from the original post, “The McKinsey Way” is a peek into the problem-solving framework used by one of the world’s most successful business strategy-consulting firms, McKinsey & Company.
This is the last of the three part series and speaks to, “what to do with the data you capture.”
posted by Greg Hilton
Foodservice and Problem Solving Frameworks
In this series on problem solving frameworks we are taking a look at solving problems using methods learned from the book, The McKinsey Way by Ethan M. Rasiel, and applying them to trade promotion management issues. If you are checking in from the original post, “The McKinsey Way” is a peek into the problem-solving framework used by one of the world’s most successful business strategy-consulting firms, McKinsey & Company.
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