Stacy Jackson

Thank You Steve Jobs

Answers Systems — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 14:42:26 GMT

Much to the chagrin of some of our IT staff, I am a Mac fanatic. Love, love, love Apple products. I had one of the first generation iPods and a first generation iPod Touch. I have a first generation iPad. I’ve been through an iBook, a PowerBook, and now on a MacBook Pro (one for work and one at home). I just can’t imagine life without Apple products. Thank you, Steve Jobs, for your innovative products that have enriched lives and improved the way people work (although I am sure I would get some argument from my Windows friends on the “improving work” part).

Although not unexpected, I was still saddened at the news of Steve Jobs’ death. Other than simply being in awe of the legacy of innovation he leaves, I am in awe of him as a figure. He seemed to doggedly pursue his vision for his products despite anything the naysayers threw at him, and he was a master artisan at sharing the product story with consumers. I highly recommend this presentation from Carmine Gallo, Columnist for BusinessWeek, that outlines Jobs’ story-telling approach. It’s a really great read for those interested in creating a compelling story that your customers and prospects will care about.

Companies like Answers Systems, a division of AFS Technologies, can thank Steve Jobs for pushing the envelope. Through his revolutionary products, solution providers have new opportunities to deliver mobile software to sales people—making their job easier, making their reaction time quicker and more efficient. We can also thank him for his example to stick to your guns when you're pursuing excellence in product development.

Staying Connected to Solve Complex Problems

Answers Systems — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 15:00:56 GMT

Stacy Jackson

The irony of the modern age: sometimes the more connected we are, the less connected we feel. Once upon a time, you called Grandma on Sundays. Now maybe you send a text message or email. Those old friends from college get a passing comment or “Like” on their Facebook pages while you try to keep tabs on work email, personal email, update your LinkedIn profile, pay bills online, monitor your child’s grades, all while posting tweets about the movie you are half-way watching on Netflix. So many ways to connect can leave us scattered, distracted, and dissatisfied.

As more businesses move their customer support efforts online, you are lucky to get 140-characters-worth of help from the Twitter profile of your software provider’s help desk. Or, perhaps you attempt a request for help via email to a generic email box. Don't get me wrong--some companies do a great job with these technologies, but it still doesn’t replace the need for human interaction when facing complex business problems.

At Answers Systems, a division of AFS Technologies, we understand that the key to our success is based on collaborative, trust-based relationships with our clients. We tell them “it takes more than software to manage your trade spending.” Software is not the magic bullet. Engaged people and a new organizational mindset make the software work. We provide the full gamut of trade promotion management and optimization software AND services to help them gain new insights and increase ROI. Whether it’s our account managers providing analyses, our training team providing software training and help desk support, or our data acquisition team working with operators and distributors on clients’ behalves, we ultimately have one thing in mind—connecting with and serving the needs of the people at client and trading partner organizations to perform best-in-class trade promotion management.

Contact us and learn more about how our service and software solutions can work for your organization. Connect and collaborate with the industry leaders today.

Who's Minding the Trade Spending?

Answers Systems — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 18:16:47 GMT

Stacy Jackson

In our years of experience, we’ve seen many different organizational models employed by foodservice manufacturers for managing trade spending and all of its related functions (contract management, settlement, deduction management, reporting, etc.). There is no one organizational structure or reporting hierarchy common across the industry that has ownership of trade spending as its sole purpose in the life of the organization. In some companies “who owns trade spending” may not be very clearly defined at all – to the point where the scattering of activities across departments leads to redundant work, inefficient processes, decentralized information, and lack of analytical insights. And, we know where all of that leads . . . no true understanding of program impact, loss of opportunities, and potentially loss of ROI/profitability.

It’s important that foodservice manufacturers clearly define ownership and responsibilities as they pertain to trade spending—especially when moving into a trade promotion management offering like the ContractPro® service and solution model. By addressing organizational change as part of your software/service integration, you will set your company down the path for success. Everyone should know his or her role in the successful integration and ongoing support of your trade promotion management and optimization initiative. Not only must you define roles, you need to also ensure each role holder knows his or her goals and metrics for success.

Key areas to ensure organizational alignment for successful trade promotion management are:

Contract Management: how will contract terms be captured and centralized? Who is responsible for entering contracts? Will there be auto-approval logic built into your TPM solution? Who is responsible for managing approvals and rejections? How will contracts be communicated to operators and distributors? What role does the solution partner play versus your direct employees and/or broker agency partners?

Data Acquisition: how will you capture the claim data that will come in response to your contract communications? Do you have the resources and people to handle the complexities of electronic data submissions as well as the more manually intensive paper claims? Are you prepared to manage data mapping? Is your solution partner equipped to deal with these complexities on your behalf?

Verification: after the claim data is acquired, are you able to quickly and easily match claims to contracts? Are terms and products available for efficient and expedient validation? Will you be able to spot and prevent double or triple dip payments? Does your solution partner offer integrated verification/settlement tools or services?
Reconciliation: if you encounter claims that aren’t a perfect match to contracts on file, how do you handle the reconciliation of those claims against contracts? Are your systems set up to easily accommodate the claim and contract adjustment work? Does your vendor partner have the expertise to help you with this step in the trade promotion management process?

Settlement: are you able to turn around payments quickly to distributors and operators to prevent deductions and customer relationship issues? Can your system provide you with key data to help you resolve claims via deduction and rebill any portion of the deduction that was taken in error?

Analytics & Reporting: do you have the necessary tools to manage the analyses and reporting required to truly manage and optimize your trade promotion deals? Does your solution provider offer a robust reporting tool or are you dependent upon off-the-shelf spreadsheet solutions?

Answers Systems, a division of AFS Technologies, can help you find the right answers to all of these questions to ensure best-in-class trade promotion management for your organization. Our typical customer experiences a 400 – 1200% ROI in the first year. Contact us today to get your online demonstration and learn more about how the ContractPro solution can help you improve profitability, speed of data insights, and ROI.

ContractPro® v5.1 Release

Answers Systems — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 14:39:24 GMT

posted by Stacy Jackson

Today we released ContractPro® v5.1 for general use! Take a moment to check out the feature release document attached here! Not a current customer, learn more about what the ContractPro trade promotion management Solution can do for your organization!

Answers Systems and CHD Expert North America LLC Announce Partnership

Answers Systems — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 16:58:58 GMT

Answers Systems, leading provider of foodservice trade promotion management solutions, and CHD Expert North America, LLC, the leader in collecting, managing and analyzing information for the Away-From-Home Foodservice market, announced their strategic partnership, formalized this January. The partnership will provide new opportunities for clients of both organizations to leverage new data analyses on their trade promotion programs and gain insights in street operator marketing initiatives, planning, and tracking.

“We are very excited about this new partnership with CHD Expert. The target market reach of the CHD operator database combined with Answers Systems and ContractPro solution’s data fulfillment and analytics provides a closed loop solution for the manufacturer,” Greg Hilton, President of Answers Systems, said.

“This is an exciting day for our customers as well as for CHD Expert. By providing customer's a turn-key solution to all their foodservice data and contract/campaign management needs, they will have immediate, measurable results that will help increase their market share." Cathy Kearns, General Manager of CHD Expert North America, LLC

Answers Systems and CHD Expert North America are discussing plans for an official launch event to be held in Chicago on Friday, May 19, before the National Restaurant Show.

Thoughts on This Groundhog Day's Eve

Answers Systems — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 16:38:07 GMT

by Stacy Jackson

As Groundhog Day approaches, along with a blast of wintry weather, I am reminded of a movie that I could watch over and over again. "What movie is that?" you may ask. Why it’s Groundhog Day, of course!

There are obvious reasons to like this movie: Bill Murray’s comedic talents, an interesting storyline, a great Ray Charles song. Beyond that, I like what I see as one of the underlying themes of the movie: lasting change can only come from profound change.

As Bill Murray’s character grows wearier of repeating the same day over and over again, he begins making changes to see if they will free him from living in Groundhog Day limbo. While his changes affect the outcome of the day’s circumstances, they are ultimately superficial "tweaks" that don’t translate into successful attainment of his goal—to stop repeating Groundhog Day over and over again.

How often do we approach problems in our own lives and careers by attempting to make the small, easy fixes only to be disappointed with the long-term outcome? While I can't offer advice for profound changes in your personal life, I can point you to some good posts on our blog that address making long-term changes in your approach to trade promotion management. Grab a cup of hot cocoa, stay safe and warm, and browse through this selection from Answers Systems:

What’s Your Approach? Distributor, Operator Billbacks

Great Trade Promotion Management Takes Discipline

Spolier Alert: Deductions

Implementing a Trade Promotion Management Solution

Overriding Pendings

Houston, Do We Really Have a Problem?

What's Wrong with Deductions?

Answers Systems and FSE Inc. Announce Partnership

Answers Systems — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 15:58:08 GMT

Answers Systems, a leading provider of foodservice trade promotion management solutions, and FSE Inc., a leading provider of data synchronization services throughout North America, formalized a strategic partnership this January. This partnership reinforces both organizations’ commitment to trading partner connectivity and reduction of redundancies in the trade promotion contract management process.

Answers Systems and FSE Inc., partnered last September to provide connectivity between the Answers Systems’ ContractPro® trade promotion management application, a solution for capture of manufacturer contract agreements, and the FSEnet⁺Contract Management System, a hosted solution for the capture and publication of deviated and non-deviated contract agreements for Distributors and Operators.

The integration of Answers Systems’ ContractPro solution with FSEnet⁺ Contract Management System provides

standardization of party and product data according to GS1 Standards,
reduced risk of data entry error and increased timeliness by elimination of dual entry into both systems,
greater visibility of the contract status throughout the FSEnet⁺ and ContractPro workflows,
transmission of accurate billback data to Answers Systems from the FSEnet⁺ system for even more accurate claim data for settlement.

Since 1986, Answers Systems (www.answerssystems.com) has been meeting the unique trade promotion management needs of the Foodservice industry. The company stays on the leading edge of software development and service delivery with the ContractPro® solution for Foodservice manufacturers and the ValuTrak® solution for multi-unit Foodservice operators. Answers Systems' solutions provide real-time visibility into the performance of trading partner agreements and support quantifiable ROI improvements for its client base.

Answers Systems Contact: John Nicholas

FSE Inc. (www.fsenet.com), a GDSN Certified Data Pool, is a leading provider of data synchronization services throughout North America. FSE was incorporated in 1996 and has grown into a global organization providing software and data management solutions in 5 major categories: GDSN Data Pool Services, Product Information Management, Price and Program Management, Party Information Management and Order Management. FSE provides synchronization services to over 850 clients worldwide.

FSE Contact: Michael Owens

View the GS1 US Foodservice Initiative Webinar Recording

Answers Systems — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 16:38:34 GMT

If you were unable to attend last week's GS1 US Foodservice Initiative Overview webinar hosted by Answers Systems or if you want to review the webinar recording, please visit our webinar session page online. There you will find the session recordings and a PDF of the presentation decks.

As a solution provider that deals with foodservice trading partner data, Answers Systems understands the importance of the GS1 Initiative for the foodservice industry in helping bring standardization and efficiencies to the supply chain.

We look forward to seeing you at upcoming sessions featuring discussion about operator coupons and the ContractPro Road Map Review.

Answers Systems--Approaching Our 25th Anniversary This Year

Answers Systems — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 14:54:07 GMT

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 of doing business. We’ve built some cool trade promotion management software. However, that’s not what this post is about.

When you spend almost 16 years with a company, you tend to think in terms of relationships and experiences shared. After all, I have worked with 17% of these people for at least ten years and another 13% for at least five years (over 32% of our employees have been with Answers Systems for more than five years). We have shared a lot over the past decade and a half.

Besides the fun and challenging work, I will always remember how we . . .

Sat around a television in the break room awaiting the OJ trial verdict on October 3, 1995
Suffered through three no-win seasons on the company softball team from 1997 – 2000
Laughed about the losses at the weekly, post-game karaoke sessions
Huddled in cubicles and offices listening to radio news reports on September 11, 2001
Celebrated birthdays, weddings, births
Get a little crazy every Halloween with our office costume contests (my favorite year is, of course, 2005 when I won)
Supported one another during times of personal hardships and grief
Built houses together for Habitat for Humanity, sent care packages to soldiers, cheered our survivors and caretakers at the American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life, and supported employee fundraising for the Cystic Fibrosis Association’s Great Strides event

We care about providing great service because we care about maintaining a great place to work and the friendships we have here. I think our clients see the esprit de corps we enjoy, and many feel they are part of it through the interactions we have with them on a daily basis.

We look forward to spending the next year talking about our trade promotion management solutions, telling you about the way things have evolved over the past 25 years, and sharing more stories about the team of professionals here at Answers Systems.

By the way . . . I want to congratulate all of my coworkers who ran in the Walt Disney World Marathon 2011 this past weekend. I admire your dedication to the training it took to get ready for this event!

From the World of Foodservice on Twitter: Best Practices

Answers Systems — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 15:37:45 GMT

by Stacy Jackson (@StacyatAnswers)

While reviewing the feed from our Foodservice list on Twitter, I came across an article tweeted by Jeff Cattell (Twitter handle: fooddude4life) from Harvard Business Review website entitled, “Why Best Practices Are Hard to Practice.” It caught my eye because here at Answers Systems, we talk a lot about best practices in the area of trade promotion management.

The article in HBR by Ron Ashkenas points out that many organizations fail at implementing best practices due to two main factors:

Lack of adaptation: a process can’t simply be lifted from one company and placed into another. It takes study, understanding of the principles behind the best practice, and hard work to adapt a best practice to your own corporate environment. What works in one company may not work in the exact same way in your own organization.
Lack of adoption: full leadership adoption and support to drive the change throughout the organization is required for any change effort, especially implementation of best practices. Without that leadership support, your efforts are likely an exercise in futility.

Check out the full article at HBR blogs, and be sure to check out more great insights and pass-alongs from others in the foodservice Twittersphere. Don’t forget to follow us online at twitter.com/AnswersSystems.

If you would like more information about how Answers Systems works with foodservice manufacturers to implement trade promotion management best practices, please drop us an email or give us a call at (800) 225-6127. As we approach our 25th year serving the foodservice industry, we have seen and learned a lot about what works when implementing trade promotion management best practices—we’d love to share that expertise with you and your organization.