Tom Tipps
Posts by Tom Tipps, Vice President - Sales & Marketing at Answers Systems.
Recently Kristin Avery sat down with Tom Tipps to have a conversation about his National Restaurant Association Show experience held in Chicago this past April 29, 2011.
1. In a 100 words or less, what is NRA?
NRA stands for National Restaurant Association and has been around since at least the early 70’s. The NRA show is really an industry gathering recognizing that everyone in the industry is either in a restaurant operations business, distributor, or manufacturers [sic]. Many of our manufacturers attend who sell through distributors to restaurants, so it’s an industry wide function and it’s a great opportunity...
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!...
Land O’ Lakes, Inc., (Arden Hills, MN) and Answers Systems (Oldsmar, FL) announced the renewal of their agreement wherein Answers Systems provides their ContractPro® trade promotion management application.
“Answers Systems’ ContractPro provides a one-stop-shop solution that supports all our agreements with distributor and operator trading partners. Through the ContractPro reporting environment, we have key insights into our trade spending agreements that allow us to make better trade investment decisions,” noted Dan Emberley, Director of Sales Operations, Land O’Lakes, Inc. “Beyond software and workflow, Answers Systems is continually providing a forum for its user community where manufacturers and brokers can learn...
Shawn Cady sat down with Greg Hilton and Tom Tipps to discuss some of the highlites of the new 4.2 release of the ContractPro® trade promotion management application, released on March 1, 2010.
When Foodservice manufacturers first join our ContractPro® Community, they are typically settling a huge number of claims via distributor deduction. The manufacturer cannot process the distributors’ claims within payment terms, so the distributors just deduct.
In other words, the manufacturers are allowing their distributors to deduct claims from invoice payments…in essence, allowing the distributor to make the audit and payment decision. Bet the auditors love that!
“So, Jay, what is ABC’s policy for the overpayment of claims from our distributors and restaurant operator customers?"
"Well, Bob, we really don’t have a policy on this, but I hear that our accounting department overpays claims by about 20%.”
"Wow, Jay, that sounds like a lot of money. How can ABC Co afford that?"
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
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
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 Tom Tipps
Price “waterfalling” seems a fairly simple process that deals with the tracking of various revenue reductions/deductions as a product travels through distribution to its ultimate destination… the end-user.
The waterfalling process supports the identification of cost-cutting/margin enhancement opportunities…typically in a company’s go-to-market model.
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