Annual Planning Doesn’t Have to Start From Scratch
The annual planning process is a ritual most CPG companies embark on each year. The process consists of evaluating current year progress and making projections for the coming year in terms of expected sales and level of investment with their retailer partners.
The Top-Down and Bottom-Up Planning Process
Some companies take a “top down” approach, others take a “bottom up” approach and many are doing a combination of both.
Planning can be a time-consuming process because of how these projections are kept. You see, many CPG companies “start from scratch” and create elaborate, formula-filled spreadsheets that are incredibly detailed, but very manual to update and keep current.
The Annual Planning Process Looks Like This
Planning usually starts at the top with senior-level executives creating an overall growth target and “pushing” that target down. Marketing and Finance may also get involved in the process by driving growth targets for each of their brands, and potentially down to the SKU and account level.
Building something down to the item level by customer in a spreadsheet can quickly become overwhelming to maintain and keep accurate. Because of the “manual” nature of keeping things in a spreadsheet, human error usually causes some confusion and planning delays. After all, it’s natural for business managers, finance, marketing, and sales executives to ask multiple questions about entries and formulas used for specific items and / or customers.
Wouldn’t it be great to simplify this process and make it much faster and much more efficient? That’s where CPGvision comes in.
Introducing Efficiency with CPGvision
CPGvision offers a solution to streamline this cumbersome process. Our Target Management functionality enables senior executives to set growth targets by business unit, which can then be instantly broken down into item and customer-level targets based on the previous year's sales data.
Eliminating the "Start From Scratch" Approach
With CPGvision, there's no need to start from scratch each year. Historical data is leveraged to automatically generate targets for the new year, allowing business and account managers to fine-tune customer plans from a "bottom-up" perspective to meet overall growth objectives.
Enhanced Collaboration and Time Savings
Our platform provides real-time visibility to all stakeholders, ensuring everyone has access to the same information simultaneously. This reduces the need for back-and-forth communication and makes the planning process more efficient. Account Managers benefit from automatically generated sales plan targets for their customers, giving them immediate insight as they develop their annual promotion plans.
Streamline Your Annual Planning with CPGvision
Let CPGvision remove the stress and time consumption from your annual planning process, freeing up more time for you to focus on innovative growth strategies for your business.
With our innovative Target Management functionality, you can automate and streamline your planning from top-down targets to detailed customer levels, all while ensuring accuracy and real-time collaboration across your team.
Say goodbye to the stress and time lost in manual processes and hello to strategic growth and efficiency. Contact CPGvision now to learn how we can help you optimize your annual planning and drive your business forward.