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 compliance on a regular basis, across all distribution. So, the problem just did not exist!!!
Shifting gears to current times we know that technology, Foodservice expansion and improved sophistication have come together to provide much better opportunities for identification of the critical information elements that can drive our decisions. Every day that passes challenges suppliers to “get much better at utilizing information”. Many outside concerns, in the business of information gathering and interpretation, continue to dig deeper into info-elements and continue to pile this “stuff” in the laps their clients. The piles grow and most users of such data are simply not well equipped to “do anything with it” because they are busy running their day to day business. Visionaries knew this would happen. Too much water-for-the-sponge! The “Information Aftermarket” is HERE! It just may be time to ask for some help in planning the strategy and tactics to deal with the hot lava flow of data.
So, let’s investigate WHY many suppliers find it difficult to act on such available data. After all a hypothetical big operator/customer having, let’s say 400 units . . . liked and approved our product, communicated it downward and now we determine, from our data, that only 300 units are purchasing. What do we do? Well, solution is not as easy as one might think. Let’s look at what the manufacturer has to deal with:
It is not that easy to go tell a big operator . . . you approved it, so why can’t you dictate it? You “promised” compliance, based on my pricing, so what happened? First of all, many suppliers have a tough time getting those kinds of words out of their mouth with a customer. Second, they are not totally sure who in their organization to assign that task . . . the highest National Account person? The NAM over the specific operator? The Sales VP? The Broker that is close with the Operator Headquarter?
One also has to be careful because when some operators are confronted they may choose to hand the supplier back the monkey with . . . “it is your job to get your message into our units and it appears that you have not been totally successful”. Although a weak position, some manufacturers may not have good answers.
Another problem is, with many operators, compliance is dependent upon partnering franchisees who can affect a lot of “off-contract” purchasing and are very difficult to control.
The bottom line is – the right strategy and accompanying tactics may be difficult to determine and even harder to exercise.
Information overload has done a few things. It has helped to identify promises versus activity. It seems to have dictated that suppliers must find better ways to address the visibility that they have so actively craved. It also has presented some potential job opportunities for a handful of consulting specialists in the marketplace that know how to help suppliers maneuver through the maze of issues across many multi-unit channels, while at the same time taking some third party ownership of undesirable issues.
Our group is very concerned that we work with the industry to address these topics with as much background information that we can get. So, we are asking you, as an equally concerned supplier, to help us by completing the very short and very simple questionnaire. Once we have compiled and analyzed this data we will present our findings back to you. Thank you ahead of time for your participation.
PLEASE COMPLETE AND FORWARD . . . .
Click here to complete the Facing Non-Compliance Survey