‘An accurate forecast is an essential point for Supply Chain optimization,’ comments Ariel Weil, General Manager Assistant of DynaSys. ‘Therefore to obtain accurate sales forecasts, it is crucial to carefully audit the history whilst taking into account any exceptional events, such as special offers, cannibalism, inventory shortage, etc. Moreover, it appears to be more and more necessary for manufacturers to better share information related to promotions, and to useit prior to the planning process. Promotional campaigns are occasionally planned up to a year and a half in advance with mass distribution.Sharing qualitative and quantitative information with the various players (marketing, forecasters, salesmen, regional managers, etc.) is essential in order to improve the quality of forecasts.’

‘Truthfully, confides Ariel Weil, this solution is an answer to a high level of market demand, which we have felt quite perceptibly, as promotions represent today an increasing volume of total sales, due to the pressure of mass distribution. To design this detailed trade promotion management tool, we thus consulted with numerous European industrial groups often confronted with this problem. Together, we have defined their needs and analysed the various specificities in order to accurately respond to the technological, functional and ergonomic criteria of our future customers.’

This new module will permit companies to monitor the entire promotion implementation process – from the time the customer account executive requests a production capacity reservation, until the final agreement is negotiated with the purchasing cooperatives.

This tool, which will be employed by all the users for refining sales forecasts, has a simple interface for data entry and follow-up, making it possible to define promotion profiles and to determine single or multiple promotions. It is also possible to simultaneously manage promotions at various levels of the product hierarchy – for example detailed tradepromotions by shop and aggregated at a national level.

‘Finally , Ariel Weil concludes, ‘through this new trade promotion management module, DynaSys hopes to foster collaboration between all the players who have this information at their disposal, enabling them to share data, correct the past, and most importantly to better anticipate the future. Thanks to the ‘Single Click Collaborative’ technology, the detailed information entered by the different players in the supply chain is immediately taken into account, which permits the company to be more reactive and to attain higher levels of performance.’

The main objective of this detailed trade promotion management functionality is without a doubt to improve the customer service rate, which was the drawing point for Guy Degrenne , specialist in the manufacture and distribution of tableware products. It recently acquired this new module offered by DynaSys to follow-up the complete implementation process of its multi-reference promotions.

‘In some of our activities, promotional operations surpass 50%,’explains Christophe Elyn, Logistics Director at Guy Degrenne. ‘This generates a very strong impact on our forecasts!That’s why the management ofmulti-reference promotions was one of the criteria used in selecting DynaSys’ offer. We also hope to develop the quality of our services, to the point where we can attain a 95% rate in traditional distribution networks, and 98% for supermarkets…’