The Consumer Brands & Retail business logic applies to companies that manufacture and sell products for the consumer market through a channel and/or a retail outlet. These companies typically need to excel at two customer markets: 1) Share of mind of the consumer and 2) Share of shelf of the retailer. Consumer Brand companies usually come from industries such as groceries and non-food retail, as well as from manufacturing of branded consumer products.

Typical business challenges

Typical business challenges that companies in Consumer Brands & Retail business are struggling with are:

• Margins are diminishing due to price erosion
• Commoditisation exposes to the risk of losing shelf space to private labels
• Sales are stagnating, which calls for genuine product innovations
• Increasing risks related to on-off decisions at retail chains and tighter supplier managements principles
• Field sales is becoming a cost instead of an asset due to access denials and low perceived value for customer
• Customer loyalty is increasingly difficult if not impossible to maintain. Smart shopping and hedonistic life-styles are some of the key drivers behind this.

Vectia value proposition and offering for consumer brands and retail companies

Vectia has a strong track record of dramatically improving bottom-line and top-line growth for our Consumer Brands & Retail customers. We have achieved these results together with our customers by working on the following value drivers:

• Renewal: bottom-line efficiency through segment management, top-line growth through innovation
• Channel offering: from one size fits all to selective channel offerings
• Sales empowerment: field sales from cost to asset
• Brand and customer loyalty: from share of voice to relevancy

Renewal. We support our customers in achieving top-line growth by offering effective tools for innovation. We combine a fact-based approach with deep understanding of every-day practices. Novel methods like practice design™ help understanding customers’ and consumers’ every day practices and turning them into innovations, both for the consumers and for the channel customers. Innovation is needed in, for instance, developing selective channel offerings or increasing brand loyalty, where the focus should be turned to consumer relevancy rather than share of voice in the more competitive market.

Channel offering. Based on deep understanding of both the company’s customers and customer’s customers we are able to build unique and actionable segmentation models. This helps eg. in designing selective channel offerings where products and services are tailored both according to customers’ value for the provider and according to provider’s value for the customer. This in turn allows for allocating sales resources in a more efficient way – ensuring focus on the most valuable customers, and developing cost efficient offerings for the less valuable segments.

Sales empowerment.  Succeeding in segment management requires not only new tools and processes but also the ability to take field sales materials and tools to the next level. We provide unique tools for implementing segment based offerings to the customer encounters.

Brand and customer loyalty. Loyalty programs can be used as a tool to improve customer retention and thus improve both top- and bottom-line performance. Vectia can support our customers in e.g. analysing the feasibility of a loyalty concept to the business, or developing the concept including the offering, business case, partner management model, incentive logic and management model.

Enablers for these value drivers are:

• Customer base analysis to understand and work on the possibilities and risks
• Methods for understanding customers’ every day practices and for turning them into offering innovations
• Unique and actionable segmentation models
• Competitive segment and channel offerings
• Hands-on tools to empower and support the sales force in day-to-day activities and customer encounters
• Capability to manage the organisation from the customer segment perspective
• Strategy driven remuneration model design to drive desired behaviour

Typical assignments within Consumer Brands and Retail –segment:

• Segmentation model & segment management
• Channel offering and sales development
• Field sales development
• Offering innovation
• Loyalty program assessment and concept development
• Collaborative CRM: “B2B2C”
• Chain management

Please contact Mr. Mika Rytkönen (firstname.lastname@vectia.com) for more information about the Consumer Brands & Retail segment or Vectia’s services to customers in this business segment.