Consumer Goods companies face increasing market pressures to understand and deliver value to consumers, shoppers and their retail customers. Consumers' preferences are constantly shifting, shoppers are becoming ever more mobile and retailers are growing in market power and sophistication. Technology has radically transformed the practice of marketing, and it is continually transforming the way customers interact with businesses. As a result, consumer goods companies and their retail partners need to differentiate themselves from the competition by using new formats and channels for connecting with consumers. Market-responsive companies are embracing digital marketing in order to create a two-way conversation with shoppers and consumers. In fact, the digital world has created a dynamic environment in which companies can listen to their customers’ wants and needs, and then use what they have learned to create new, innovative products, promotions, and market opportunities.
Hitachi Consulting and Microsoft have teamed up to give Consumer Goods companies the tools they need to understand and quickly respond to their market.
We have identified three specific areas of focus, based on experience helping numerous Consumer Goods companies face these challenges over the years:
- Marketing Effectiveness/Digital Marketing - Accountability of Spend
- Store/Shelf Level Demand Responsiveness – Actionable Information
- SAP/Microsoft Platform Interoperability - Leverage Existing Software Assets
Marketing Effectiveness/Digital Marketing
Marketing often has the largest discretionary budget in the company, being effective and accountable for that spend is critically important. Marketers have always been challenged to link promotions and campaigns with sales results. With the emergence of digital marketing, marketers have new ways to reach and connect with consumers and shoppers to increase and drive retailer shopper traffic and improve their overall effectiveness of spend. Hitachi Consulting's Marketing Effectiveness/Digital Marketing Solution provides Consumer Goods marketing professionals with a closed-loop process, coordination of marketing activities and flexible technology platform to help improve overall effectiveness of the marketing spend. By capturing and distilling both offline and online information, Consumer Goods marketing management can create and enforce consistent processes that create repeatable results. They can see the impact of how their marketing strategy translates into dollars spent by targeted consumers and shoppers.
Store/Shelf Level Demand Responsiveness
Consumer Goods companies possess product insights and understand their consumers while retailers attract and sell to shoppers. By connecting these perspectives into "one version of the truth", Consumer Goods companies and retailers can create a winning relationship at the shelf. Today, retailers are providing Store Level point of sale data through Demand Signal Repository (DSR) providers and are looking to work with Consumer Goods companies to improve replenishment and tailor merchandising activities for their shoppers. Hitachi Consulting's Store/Shelf Level Demand Responsiveness Solution provides a scalable and cost effective answer to connecting the Consumer Goods Master Data Management view with their Retailers Demand Signal Shopper view. This "one version of the truth" capability provides actionable information to improve operations, store level merchandizing and joint marketing initiatives. With this Hitachi/Microsoft MDM solution, Consumer Goods companies can increase the value of their DSR investment by providing a data enrichment capability that sits between the clients' enterprise systems of record and their DSR(s). DSR users often want data attributes that are specific to only one group of users and therefore not maintained in an enterprise system of record. This solution will allow new attributes with proper ownership (for example, the Consumer Goods company's Sales team focused on 7-Eleven may desire to maintain 5 new attributes that are unique to working with 7-Eleven).
Microsoft/SAP Interoperability
In order to extract greater value out of your existing software assets and lower total cost of ownership, Hitachi Consulting and Microsoft have created a solution to address Microsoft/SAP Interoperability challenges. This solution can help you connect with your consumers, shoppers and retail customers as well as extend your internal processes to make the most of your existing systems and improve business performance.
As Hitachi, Ltd.'s (NYSE: HIT) global consulting company, Hitachi Consulting is a recognized leader in delivering proven business and IT solutions to Global 2000 companies. With a balanced view of strategy, people, process and technology, Hitachi Consulting works with companies to understand their unique business needs, and to develop and implement practical business strategies and technology solutions to help companies achieve total business transformations.
