foodservice
There are 50 entries for the tag
foodservice
Recently Kristin Avery sat down with Tom Tipps to have a conversation about his National Restaurant Association Show experience held in Chicago this past April 29, 2011.
1. In a 100 words or less, what is NRA?
NRA stands for National Restaurant Association and has been around since at least the early 70’s. The NRA show is really an industry gathering recognizing that everyone in the industry is either in a restaurant operations business, distributor, or manufacturers [sic]. Many of our manufacturers attend who sell through distributors to restaurants, so it’s an industry wide function and it’s a great opportunity...
By Kristin Avery
Have you ever wondered how you receive your fast food so fast? Honestly, I’ve never given it a second thought. All I know is that I turn into a five-year-old who’s been denied a toy when my food takes longer than two minutes. The television show “How Do They Do It?” on the Discovery Channel recently helped me put this fast food efficiency into perspective and led me to do some additional research on the topic.
CNN Money provides a taste of how complex fast food drive-through technology really is. According to the article, “Candid Camera at the Fast-Food...
By Kristin Avery
A hot button topic that began a few months ago- and continues to be a topic of conversation- is the removal of toys from McDonalds Happy Meals in San Francisco, California and it looks like this issue will not be going away any time soon.
The placement of toys in Happy Meals was initially challenged by a Sacramento mothers’ class-action law suit. According to the Los Angeles Times the lawsuit alleges that,”McDonald’s exploits very young California children and harms their health by advertising unhealthy Happy Meals with toys directly to them.” There are many that stand behind this...
By Susan Sanford
So you have reached that point where you realize there is not enough time in the day to get your work done. What do you do? Like most, you will probably read a time management book, take a class, or use the latest technology to organize your day. All of these resources will incorporate some sort of strategy to help you find efficiencies in your processes; usually incorporating a “touch it once” theory. Every time you can save a touch point, you can save time. Your Trade Contract Management works the same way.
Maybe the whole sentence could...
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 Greg Hilton
As I pass and continue to approach some age milestones, I am becoming much more reflective about life. From time to time, I realize how little I know and how much I wish that I had listened better in grade school and college. Maybe a little more study time would have enabled me to better answer some of the questions that I get asked.
Questions like:
1. Is Steven Tyler a better American Idol judge that Simon Cowell?
2. Where did Myspace.com go wrong and Facebook.com go right?
3. Is their life after working in the Foodservice industry?...
By Janet Zlokovich
While unpacking my groceries at the check-out line of my local supermarket, I like to look over the discounts I’m going to receive on my purchase. 2 for 1’s are one of my favorite ways to save and usually results in the largest subtraction off my final grocery bill.
Since I am always wearing my Foodservice hat, I ponder the strategy manufacturers have taken to position their products so consumers will notice a sale display and make the ultimate decision to purchase one brand over the competitors. Will the manufacturer receive the ROI they hoped to achieve by...
By Tom Tipps
Here we are in 2011…and most Foodservice manufacturers are still settling all or most of their claims via distributor deduction. The manufacturers can’t process the distributors’ claims within payment terms, so the distributors just deduct.
So, what’s wrong with that? Here’s a two-part answer…
1. If the manufacturer is actually auditing every line item on the deduction against their contract and issuing a rebill invoice for invalid deductions…that’s okay from an audit perspective.
2. But, if the manufacturer is just issuing debit memos without audit…the distributor has taken ownership of the payment decision. The auditors will love this!...
by John Nicholas
What are the business practices that will help me maximize my profits and return on investment?
What metrics do I use to measure the effectiveness of my sales efforts and spending?
How can I increase the rate of new product penetration?
What are my real costs of doing business?
These questions must be asked! Finding the answers to those questions will be nothing short of the difference between success and failure.
Analytics are the tools needed to prepare a road map for actions steps. Manufacturers that are highly data-oriented and make use of analytics are much more likely...
by Bud Hilton
Easy opening, Easy to dispense, Easy monthly payments, So Easy, a Caveman can do it . . . We are all suckers for “life made easy” sales pitches. However, we also know that in many cases the end result of the Easy promise is the failure to deliver to expectation. You probably don’t believe that the “cheapest” product can perform as good as a more expensive one? So, why would you believe that the easy message fulfills expectations comparable to something that may require a little more effort? Most people know better than this but still fall for...
by Janet Zlokovich
Web-based portal applications hosted by Distributor and Operator trading partners are emerging in today’s foodservice environment as the new “it thing” for handling many aspects of Trade Promotion administration - contract and rebate management.
A frequently used term for these Web-based infrastructures, “Cloud computing” refers to web-based tools and applications that deliver services through common centers and are built on servers accessed via a web browser. We all know maximizing efficiencies is critical to doing business in this competitive market, these applications can result in many benefits for the host company through the framework that will enforce compliance...
by Kristin Avery
In America, it is important to create new and innovative ways to set businesses apart and make them unique. One way that businesses have creatively set themselves apart from the competition is by playing with the grammatical spelling of their name. For example, Cash and Carry is spelled Kash-n-Karry. If you haven’t noticed it before, I’m sure you will now notice it everywhere. Every time I see one of these crafty signs I often imagine how hard it would be for a person learning English for the first time. How coming to this country and trying to learn...
by Kristin Avery
Being new to the world of trade promotion management, the ironic movie “The Matrix” keeps crossing my mind. I keep picturing one scene in particular. It’s the scene after Neo (Keanu Reeves) takes the red pill and after being, reborn goes through a process of learning new skills. All he has to do is attach an uncomfortable cable into the back of his head and he can learn whatever he wants to by ways of a computer download, leading to one of my favorite lines when Neo says, “Wooh, I know kung-fu”.
I believe the reason why this...
by Kristin Avery
Get into office by 7:30 a.m. Attend Team Meeting Update from 8-9 a.m. Check emails. Attend product meeting. Brainstorm on new ways to enhance product features. Grab quick lunch. Conduct conference call with potential client. Deal with new issues affecting start-up timetables. Finally leave office at 6:30 p.m. Battle rush-hour traffic. Dinner? Aaah, now that is the question.
Options:
a. Have a nice leisurely dinner at a white-cloth restaurant--call spouse and give him/her directions.
b. Make a quick stop at Applebee’s--have kids head over after their baseball game.
c. Pick up Taco Bell--eat in the car or at...
Oldsmar, FL, March 23, 2010 -- Answers Systems, the leading provider of foodservice trade promotion management solutions is pleased to announce it’s partnership with Nestlé Professional Vitality Beverage Solutions in managing its trade spending processes.
Nestlé Professional Vitality enters this relationship with Answers Systems after acquiring Vitality Foodservice, Inc., Tampa, Florida. Prior to this acquisition, Vitality Foodservice had been working with Answers Systems to manage its trade promotion programs. Nestlé Professional Vitality sees Answers Systems as the optimal solution provider in continuing to manage the complexities of its Vitality foodservice trade promotion and spending.
Since 1986, Answers Systems has been...
I was reading a post on-line a few days ago about both the President and Congress agreeing that things are improving in our nation’s economy. Jobless numbers finally took a small decline and consumer confidence is up (even just a tiny bit) for the first time in many months. Funny though, ‘Things looking up’ when our national economy is facing what seems to be an insurmountable year-over-year budget deficit just does not seem to make sense. It is like saying, “Gee, my car is really driving much b
by John Nicholas
Todd is a CFO for a mid size foodservice manufacturer. He is frustrated! He just asked his Director of Finance to provide him with a report on the dollars and cents impact of raising the price on one of their SKU’s. He simply wanted to know, based on last year’s sales, what the price increase would mean for their bottom-line. It seemed like a simple request on the surface, but the Director of Finance explained to him, that before she could get the numbers to Todd, she needed
by Tracy McQuilkin
Deductions are something every manufacturer we work with does differently. It seems no one has found the perfect way to handle deductions that is consistent across all companies.
We recently had a deep dive with a client’s deduction team. Most of the confusion was related to terminology and lack of understanding of what it takes to clear a deduction. Job shadowing was suggested to help with this client.
How do you handle deductions? What makes it so hard with your organization? We'd love to hear your feedback - click here to let us know what is working (or...
Throughout recent history the Foodservice and Trade Spend Management industry, as well as much of corporate America, has used really cool big words to describe trends and philosophies.
From the early eighties, we had Total Quality Management (TQM), a management theory for defect reduction and heightened quality standards. Sun Tzu (that is him on the right), an ancient Chinese military general penned, “The Art of war” and a whole industry of management theorist began translating the logic of
If you monitor Twitter, Apple-related news, or technology gadgets in general, you probably know that the Apple tablet is being revealed - about right now, in fact (1:00 EST).
For years we’ve all tried to get the sales force to stop using the cocktail napkins as a preferred contract delivery method. Now with the advent of Apple’s revolutionary tablet computer, the game is changing for contract management. The new tablet (and future generations of tablets) will allows our apps to become a "dig
by Greg Hilton
Answers Systems has kicked off an incredibly exciting product development roadmap for 2010. We are focused on delivering focused improvements in our core products, ContractPro® and ValuTrak®. In the design of this year’s major product and service releases, our team focused on some key needs for our customers:
When Foodservice manufacturers first join our ContractPro® Community, they are typically settling a huge number of claims via distributor deduction. The manufacturer cannot process the distributors’ claims within payment terms, so the distributors just deduct.
In other words, the manufacturers are allowing their distributors to deduct claims from invoice payments…in essence, allowing the distributor to make the audit and payment decision. Bet the auditors love that!
I recently watched a television show featuring a Snowman. My mind’s eye began to conjure up our foodservice industry in relation to the 3 parts of the Snowman. Go ahead and say it . . . I don’t have a real life!!! Maybe so, but let me tell you more about my vision.
Posted by Tom Tipps
There’s been a lot of dialogue around the topic of trade-spend management in the Foodservice industry; but, in all honesty I’m not sure the industry has ever really agreed on the definition of “Trade” Spending.
From my perspective Foodservice trade spending involves incentives paid by manufacturers directly to their operator and distributor trading partners…to motivate those trading partners to purchase, sell or promote the manufacturers products/brands to the restaur
Bud Hilton, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Genesis Group, Inc., dba Answers Systems, the leading provider of foodservice trade promotion management solutions, announced the promotion of Greg Hilton to President of Genesis Group, Inc., dba Answers Systems. Bud Hilton, founder of Answers Systems in 1986 and whose career spans over 46 years in the foodservice industry, will continue in his role as Chairman of the Board and CEO. Bud will become even more involved in foodservice industry i
Since 1986, Answers Systems has been meeting the unique trade promotion and compliance performance management needs of the foodservice industry. We know the industry-specific requirements and challenges faced by each trading partner, and we understand the perspectives of key stakeholders such as sales, marketing, finance,IT, and purchasing.
As a best-in-class provider of trade promotion and compliance performance management solutions to some of the leading foodservice and hospitality brands in the world, Answers Systems helps clients analyze and understand their contracts, increase efficiencies, identify claim inaccuracies, gain compliance, and improve ROI. In the course of serving our clients . . .
...
Posted by Tom Tipps
Through our decades of experience in managing trade promotion transactions for foodservice manufacturers, Answers Systems is able to validate many of these statistics with real-world examples.
Technomic says, "On average 28% of trade claims are overstated."
For Answers Systems' clients the numbers range from a high of 50% for new clients to a low of 22% of seasoned clients. The critical statistic is that the dollar value of invalid claims totals 15% of the total dollar
Posted by Stacy Jackson
Recently I posted about the critical steps in foodservice trade promotion management (TPM). The foundation of those critical steps for any TPM solution is standardization. I pulled the transcript of a webinar about Standardization & Communication in Foodservice Trade Promotion Management presented by Roth Block, COO – Answers Systems and Tom Rector, President – Foodservice University®. This information is too good not to share again - at least in this summary form. To
Posted by Stacy Jackson
Do you ever get songs stuck in your head? I do. Today’s song is “Surf City” by Jan & Dean. “Two girls for every boy” and “I’m going to Surf City where it’s two to one. Yeah, I’m going to Surf City. Gonna have some fun.” It’s kind of annoying, yet it got me to thinking about ratios. Surf City apparently had a 2:1 ratio of girls to boys. I started wondering what kind of ratios I might find in the quarterly report I received regarding our data mapping for our clients' tra
Posted by Greg Hilton
Wikipedia says the term Value Add speaks to difference between the cost to produce a good or service and the sale price. My economics professor in college, “Professor Humdrum,” probably defined it in the same calculating boring and repetitious way (he was good about that). Nothing against monotony, it just seems to go on and on.
Years later in the real world, the term Value Add became less synonymous with economic theory and definition and more about a handy catch p
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
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
Posted by Stacy Jackson
Celebrity chefs and shows like Hell’s Kitchen and Top Chef highlight the creative, exciting side of the restaurant business. The contestant developing the exquisite menu item that will keep himself or herself safe from the wrath of Gordon Ramsay makes for great television.
Although they can be a big a part of a restaurant’s success, I don’t think the folks dealing with supplier contract negotiations will ever get their own shows. “America’s Next Top Purchasing Agen
If you Google “change management,” you get about 240 million results. As you can imagine, this is a hot topic and has become quite the buzzword. What is it, and when did this become one of the most integral parts of managing the success of a business?
According to Wikipedia, Change Management is “the structured approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations from a current state to a desired future state.” Also, common sense (and Einstein) says that doing the same thing over
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
I am, by no means, what you would call a gamer. Yes, I grew up during the height of “Pac-Man Fever,” went to the arcade frequently, played Atari at home, followed by Nintendo in the later teen years, but I pretty much left the video games behind after college. Left them behind until I fell in love with the Nintendo Wii. I now even have a GameFly subscription.
I have rented everything from Resident Evil to The Dog Island, which I did conquer by the way. I have Silent Hill, Spore, Raving Rabbid
Imagine this…
Every month you get your credit card bill (not very hard to imagine!), you hop online, and pay your bill. The only difference is that your credit card company only provides you with a total amount due. There isn’t a line item statement included detailing the charges to your card. Would you just pay your bill and trust that they’re not charging you an inflated interest rate or billing you for charges you didn’t authorize? Probably not. You could potentially be throwing away mone
As Data Acquisition Liaison, I work with foodservice distributors to set up electronic data transmissions for trade spend contract management. In today’s competitive economic environment, electronic data and automated file transmissions are key to maximizing trade spend billbacks that occur on the end-of-the-supply-chain. Answers Systems has both manufacturer and operator clients so there are many opportunities to streamline data interchange for all 3 sides of the foodservice triangle.
My
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
Have you ever built a puzzle only to get to the end and find that you are missing a piece? Sure, you can tell what the final picture is supposed to be, but it just isn’t complete.
The same holds true as a foodservice operator or hospitality group. Your organization has worked to build a strong, profitable company but if you do not have an accurate rebate, compliance and performance tracking system in place you are missing a piece to your organization’s puzzle. Not to mention, a very profita
Lately I have been re-reading parts of Jim Collins' Good To Great, a book based on research into how good companies transform themselves into great organizations. Among the many interesting points/revelations in the book, Jim Collins describes how great companies have a culture of discipline while merely "good" companies often have a disciplinarian culture. The difference between the two is this:
A culture of discipline is made up of self-disciplined people who engage in disciplined thinkin
Posted by Stacy Jackson
While reviewing the various tweets from the Tweeps we are following on Twitter (that's a tongue twister!), I saw a link to an interesting story about foodservice on Facebook. No - I'm not talking about online menus or even online ordering. I'm referring to the game called Restaurant City on Facebook.
According to a recent Los Angeles Times article, "Virtual cooking is a hit on Facebook," it sounds like foodservice has become an addictive new game. People can hav
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.
If y
posted by Stacy Jackson
If you haven't already begun thinking about the decision handed down in April on the Feesers, Inc. v. Michael Foods, Inc. & Sodexho, Inc., you may want to start now. Not just start thinking about it, but reviewing with your legal department the ways you have been contracting/pricing. (By the way . . . this litigation started before Sodexo dropped the “h” from their name, thus the old-school spelling in the court documents).
The Feesers ruling is tough for some o
Since 1986, Answers Systems has provided best–in-class trade promotion and compliance management solutions for leaders in the foodservice and hospitality industry. The ValuTrak(R) solution is one of the most efficient and effective tools available in the industry. This product is a service for multi-unit accounts that support management of supplier agreements via data acquisition, rebate management, price verification and compliance reporting.
FAST FACTS
On a yearly basis, Answers Systems’
If you attended the 2009 ContractPro® User Conference, you may remember that Answers Systems plans to roll out a service ticket process that will allow client users to enter service requests directly to Answers Systems without having to go through a Client Team Leader or Customer Service Rep. Phase One of this solution launched on April 16 for a few charter users. Over the next 60 – 90 days, we will be working with the rest of the Answers Systems’ client base to configure the service ticket port
As you have probably figured out from the past two posts, Answers Systems is growing. Our growth is on several fronts: product enhancement, services, data volume, and headcount. Answers Systems has been sure to keep the hardware, networking, and infrastructure needs on par with this growth to ensure our ability to handle ever increasing complexity, data volume, and users.
In a recent foodservice conference someone made a case that manufacturers’ expenditures toward the trade should be considered “investment” not “spend.” An executive with a very large food manufacturer made the statement . . . “Don’t try to kid yourselves, most of it is spend, not investment.”
Foodservice manufacturers spend a total of about $3 billion each year in support of their trade relationships with foodservice distributors and restaurant operators.
For most manufacturers, their total trade spend is the second largest item on their income statement . . . second only to COGS.