by Greg Hilton
During this time of year at Answers Systems, our office decorates and participates in Halloween festivities. We wear costumes on the last business day before the big day, we decorate offices and we generally just have a little fun. Amid all of the fun, we are serious about helping our customers get past the fear that is contract management.
Manufacturers and operators face the same basic dilemma: how to harness all of their contract management activities, keep track of the data and make decisions based on this information. It is scary! That is why manufacturers and operators need help navigating the haunted house that is our industry.
Using some pictures from around our corporate office, I wanted to list out some scary areas that Answers Systems helps answer for our clients:
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Boo! Where is my contract? Often, the first step in getting our new customers to clean up their current Trade Promotion graveyard is to just get all their contracts stored in one place. You have to get your hands on the contracts, store them in one place, and work with your organization to begin to adopt a standard for storage and approval.
Where are the bodies buried? You’ve got to get 100% of your trading data. Have you ever thought about how much easier your life could be if EVERY CLAIM in the market was coming in a standard
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format, clean and mapped to your item number and customer? That is what we do here at Answers Systems, and that is the only way to gain confidence that you are not leaving any skeletons in the closet (yeah, I know, the “skeleton thing” was a bit of a stretch).
Harvest the data! Now you know what happened, let’s get started predicting the future! With near real time activity and a standard method to analyze the information, you can have a perspective that lets you be better at predicting your operator and distributor claiming trends.
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Thank you to the Answers Systems’ teammates that did some festive Halloween decorating this year and inspired my scary blog.
Want to embrace the issue, consider the solution and really improve your organization’s trade promotion management? Contact us. Answers Systems' ContractPro and ValuTrak solutions are software and outsourced services designed for the unique and specific needs of the foodservice industry.
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