June 2011 Entries

Trade Promotion Management - More Than Meets The Eye

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...

posted @ Wednesday, June 22, 2011 3:36 PM | Feedback (0)

Facing Non-Compliance

Captain Obvious once said . . . Your Best Customer is Your Existing Customer! Most of us in the Foodservice industry feel that some of our best customers are our contracted chain accounts because once we sell them, the cases keep repeating. Good Concept! The problems start when manufacturers make price concessions for a large multi-unit chain and finds out later that ALL units may not be purchasing or case predictions are understated. Years ago suppliers didn’t have to worry much about this issue simply because they didn’t have good reporting systems to identify operator unit level compliance or non...

posted @ Monday, June 20, 2011 12:33 PM | Feedback (0)

A Home Run for Trade Promotion Management

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...

posted @ Monday, June 13, 2011 12:00 PM | Feedback (0)

Changes, when are they a bad thing?

By Tracy McQuilkin This past weekend I went and saw the latest installment of the Pirates of Caribbean films, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.  Before seeing the movie, I experienced a bit of hesitation because a majority of the main characters that have made the franchise such a success and that I have grown to love were not going to be appearing. I mean how can you have a Pirates of the Caribbean movie without the infamous, Will Turner?!  I overcame the lack of familiar characters and saw it anyways. Despite the major character changes, I proudly state...

posted @ Wednesday, June 08, 2011 1:26 PM | Feedback (0)