trade promotion management
There are 65 entries for the tag
trade promotion management
By Kristin Avery
If you’ve been on Facebook recently then you heard the rumor that Facebook was going to start charging its users. There was one posting in particular that I saw several times and it went like this:
"FACEBOOK JUST RELEASED THEIR PRICE GRID FOR MEMBERSHIP. $9.99 PER MONTH FOR GOLD MEMBER SERVICES, $6.99 PER MONTH FOR SILVER MEMBER SERVICES, $3.99 PER MONTH FOR BRONZE MEMBER SERVICES, FREE IF YOU COPY AND PASTE THIS MESSAGE BEFORE MIDNIGHT TONIGHT. WHEN YOU SIGN ON TOMORROW MORNING YOU WILL BE PROMPTED FOR PAYMENT INFO...IT IS OFFICIAL IT WAS EVEN ON THE NEWS Facebook...
By Kristin Avery
The topic of “Trade Spend” can be a difficult one to tackle. Where does one start? What key words should I type when doing an internet search? Who are experts on the topic? What information can I trust?
All right, don’t panic! Answers Systems is here to provide the answers to all your “Trade Spend” questions. You can start to tackle the topic of “Trade Spend” right here. Instead of conducting a general search on the internet that would cost you time browsing through article upon article, Answers Systems has compiled 5 of their most visited “Trade Spend” blog...
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
It’s baseball season, my favorite season. My favorite team is the Tampa Bay Rays. When I’m not watching the Rays, I’ll even attend an occasional softball game. At a recent softball game, it finally occurred to me that the baseball diamond looks a lot like the Answers Systems logo. While a visual stretch for some, it was an instant connection for me. Well, once I made that initial analogy, it then opened the flood gates for a number of baseball/ Answers Systems trade promotion management analogies.
First analogy...
The first analogy between Answers Systems and baseball goes...
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,...
By Greg Hilton
Wow, I’m amazed how far technology has come in recent years. As I type this, I am cruising on a SouthWest Airlines flight headed west. I have spent the morning glued to email and have responded faster to email in the air than if I was sitting with both planted on the ground surround by the craziness that is an office environment.
With so many miles traveled annually, like most business travelers, I signed up for every frequent flyer program I could find. I’m currently signed up to receive hotel, car and, of course airlines rewards. I do not...
by Janet Zlokovich
As we get older, we gain new knowledge, become more experienced and realize that staying healthy will require us to do more than when we were younger. The right diet, exercise, vitamins and regular doctor visits are all part of the regimen we need to consider for sustaining good health and maintaining a positive quality of life for longevity. Similarly, trade spend management can draw many parallels from this mind set for creating a sound framework and functionality of Answers Systems contract solutions for foodservice. Just as your healthcare provider completes a patient history to better understand how...
By Janet Zlokovich
We are seeing where more manufacturers need our expertise for their Trade Promotion data acquisition. Three sides of the foodservice trading partner triangle – manufacturer, distributor & operator are implementing new enterprise systems and purchasing software applications for their rebate tracking, so there is a downstream impact on their Trade claim reporting. At Answers Systems, we turn this into a positive!! We look for the ultimate benefit the industry will receive from new trading partner capabilities, particularly when they result with an improved billback claim output file or transmission method for delivery. This especially applies to distributors, since...
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 Tracy McQuilkin
In order to accurately process a claim we not only need a valid contract in ContractPro but we also require specific information on the actual claims themselves. If the information is missing from a claim we receive we place the claim on hold until the information is received. Below are some of the fields we must have, note depending on the claim type the fields vary. If you would like the full SOP for these requirements please contact your Answers Systems Account Manager.
To ensure your customers are submitting the following when requesting rebates for Contracted deviated or HQ...
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 Stacy Jackson
January is a month when many of us spend time both reflecting on the past and looking toward the future. It’s an especially big year for those of us working at Answers Systems: this April marks our 25th anniversary serving the rebate and trade promotion management (TPM) needs of the foodservice industry. This April also marks my 16th year with the company.
In the past 16 years that I’ve been with Answers Systems, we have done a lot of hard work. We’ve moved from a paper-based system of rebate and trade promotion management to an increasingly paperless, automated way...
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...
Traditionally Thanksgiving is a special time of the year when we reflect on what we’re thankful for. Here at Answers Systems we are grateful for all our clients and individuals that support the company.
Answers Systems is also thankful for being able to provide data management and technical expertise to support foodservice trade promotion management from contract creation to claim/rebate settlement to complex analyses and reporting.
From all of us at Answers Systems, we hope you have a enjoyable and safe Thanksgiving Holiday.
Technorati tags: contractcompliance, trade promotion management
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...
by Stacy Jackson
The amount of data involved in moving food from farm to fork is overwhelming. Even narrowing the focus to data related to foodservice trade promotion management still leaves millions and millions of data to contend with at any given moment. When we take it down to just the universe of Answers Systems’ client data, it’s still quite a bit of information that must be dealt with in order to pay rebates, perform contract management functions, and analyze trade promotion spending.
Answers Systems handles incoming claim data for manufacturers and operators at an average of over 5 million lines per...
by Greg Hilton
“A computer, is like a bicycle for the mind,” Steve Jobs, Founder/CEO Apple.
I always liked that quote. Humans have a difficult time keeping up with the other creatures that inhabit this earth. Thanks to opposable thumbs, our early ancestors could grasp a wooden club and “evolve” to create more advanced technology through the ages. What sets us apart from every other known species is our ability to build tools. These mechanical extensions make difficult jobs easier and make
There is a tremendous amount of energy and focus placed on organizations to select and implement great reporting and analytics tools to help plan and analyze their trading relationship data. The need to select a great reporting and analytics platform for information analysis is paramount to managing a superior business. It is, in fact, no longer a differentiator but a requirement to stay competitive.
As I was working on a list of things to get prepared for our team attending this month's National Restaurant Show in Chicago, I happened to start humming "Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music for no particular reason. It inspired me to write some alternative lyrics. Go ahead . . . close your office door and sing along with me:
Verse 1
Coffee and soda, some samples for sipping,
Delicious salsas wait for chips to come dipping,
Neat little trinkets in bags with pull strings,
These a
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...
Release offers enhanced security options, time-saving features, and powerful analytical tools for foodservice manufacturers
Answers Systems, the leading provider of foodservice trade promotion management solutions, deployed the ContractPro® version 4.2 release this month. The version 4.2 release provides features aimed at enhancing security of client instances of the ContractPro portal, increasing user productivity, and providing access to robust new analytical reports in the new ContractPro
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
I may be one of the loneliest movie-goers around after I make my confession: I didn't like Avatar.
If you have resumed consciousness after reading that shocking revelation, I'd like to tell you why before you totally write me off as a know-nothing hack.
I didn't like it because I didn't like the story. The artistry and technology were amazing, but the movie was LONG and there was something that irked me for the first two hours that I couldn't quite put my finger. Then at 2 hours and
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:
Posted by Janet Zlokovich
As we wrap up the 2009 year, I want to leave you one thought as you have discussions with your supply chain partners on trade promotion . . . .
Collaboration on data exchange should be a key factor when you establish the core objectives for your trade program model. A requirement of the model must include the submission of electronic billback reporting to the manufacturer for claim settlement. It is simply the only way vendor partners will have the proper insigh
Posted by Stacy Jackson
After reading “The Yadda Yadda Conundrum,” published December 4, in New York Magazine, I realized that a timely statement of the facts could have gone a long way for Tiger Woods. Had he just given an immediate, simple explanation of his car accident to the police, he might not be dealing with all this poking and prying into his personal life. I’m not here to comment on Mr. Woods’ life choices – just pointing out that a statement of concrete facts may have saved him a
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
When I opened the November 16, 2009, Special Issue of InformationWeek, the first thing I read was the “Down to Smarter Business” section written by editor, Rob Preston. His article headline is “People Want Results, Not ‘Solutions.’” That got me to thinking about the Answers Systems ContractPro® “solutions” versus the “results” our clients get from our trade promotion management solutions. While our offering is best-in-class for foodservice manufacturers, it’s really the results of those solution
Posted By Greg Hilton
Here is a simile for you . . . Buying a reporting solution and not considering the cleanliness, accuracy and timeliness of the data being analyzed, is like installing a beautiful water faucet in your kitchen and hooking the plumbing directly to your sewer line.
Good data is like a filet mignon!
I was on a phone call with a potential customer the other day. I love being involved in the sales process because you really get energized by offering answers to the problems th
Posted by Jennifer Grumbling
LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, You Tube, blogging, it really can turn into an endless list of social networking outlets for anyone and everyone to connect to, well, anyone and everyone. Whether you’re a business looking to spread the word about a new product or a retiree seeking out your best friend from high school, it’s amazing the reach these tools can have.
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
Last week I posted on the topic of Breaking Down TPM Critical Steps - Standardization & Rules of Engagement, based on the webinar series from Foodservice University and Answers Systems. As promised, here is some information about Back-Office Procedures to employ once you have gone about the process of standardizing your trade promotion management process and defining rules of engagement.
Posted by Jennifer Grumbling
You are probably thinking what do the Yankees and trade promotion management have to do with each other? Well, you would be surprised.
Baseball can be a tricky business. In a nutshell, the success of the team depends strictly on the players and coaches and their talent and ability for the game. So, one would think that throwing huge contracts and salaries at big name talents to draw them to the team would increase the chances, or maybe even guarantee a chance,
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
Over the past few years, we have traded a number of thoughts with clients and potential clients on the use of customer-level purchase information to drive sales and marketing initiatives.
Without getting into major minutia, I just wanted to recap Answers Systems' current capabilities in harvesting and reporting this data for CRM purposes. First of all, I would highlight that our system tracks the manufacturer's case shipments into and through distribution to the end-user. The depth of this de
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 Stacy Jackson
Today's post is an overview of the concept of The Seven Critical Steps in Best-Practice trade promotion Management. These steps have been identified and document by Answers Systems based on over 20-years of contract management and claim settlement experience in the foodservice industry.
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
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
The easy answer is “both strategies, all the time”, and most manufacturers will say that they do this religiously. However, if you peel back the onion one will find that certain times are more favorable for choosing one or the other as a primary 80/20 strategy and putting appropriate resources behind it.
There really are only a few tactical applications that fit each of these strategies. Gaining new customers is sometimes the most costly way to expand business. The manufacturer must allocate
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
There have been many discussions lately about what to do when a distributor or operator claims an incorrect amount on a billback or request. There are several options, and I wanted to point out what they are and which ones are better than others.
Disciplinarian Approach (a.k.a. “this is going to hurt me more than it does you”)
The first option is the Disciplinarian Approach: don’t pay the wrong amount – only pay the correct, allowed amount. Either the claimants will accept that “correction
Posted by Greg Hilton
Are you one of those folks who, when prompted to participate in a problem-solving meeting or discussion, cannot help but get involved in the dialogue? Are you the type that likes to hang back and see how the discussion progresses and then give your two cents? I was reminded of a third type of person (just last evening) that has a tendency to want to lead the dialogue, quite certain that they understand enough of the facts to give great insight to those around me… um, him
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
It still amazes me every day how complicated this foodservice industry is. When people ask me what I do, they listen to my answer and say things like “wow, I never realized there was a need for that.” Once you find yourself in this industry, you never leave. It sucks you in. You find yourself sitting at a restaurant table with friends looking at the back of sugar packets just to see who the distributor is. I’ve been in “the industry” now for 16 years and every time I think I have it figure
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
Post by Greg Hilton, CIO
Many years ago, I read a great book on problem solving and the art of “framing up” business problems. The book, The McKinsey Way, by Ethan M. Rasiel, is a peek into the problem-solving framework used by one of the world’s most successful business strategy-consulting firms, McKinsey & Company.
The Theme – Approach every business question with a structured framework for solving the question (Ex: How can I measure and management my contract relationships to make sure
The Answers Systems Inc ContractPro Trade Management Application Release 4.0 has been approved for general user availability on the morning of Monday, May 11th, 2009. This release is an interim release intended to address several minor issues and to prepare for upcoming releases. Below are the details of the changes:
Recently Jennifer Grumbling sat down with Shawn Cady to discuss the development of the ContractPro® AthenaSM reporting module, the next generation of trade performance management reporting from Answers Systems.
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.
Last month ContractPro® v3.4 was released to the User Community. This release contains some exciting features that will truly enhance the overall user experience.