Route to Market & Supply Chain Blog

Stealth? What made me think of that word? Do you remember that playground game called Statues? One person is the 'Museum Curator' and stands at the end of a field or yard. Everyone else stands an agreed distance away and the aim of the game is for a…

Once More Unto The Breach You could hear the groans around the room when the FMCG CEO announced to the company that they had decided to implement Sales & Operational Planning (S&OP). After months of prevarication and toing and froing, a decision had…

Cost saving klaxon alert!!!!!!! Picture the scene in many an FMCG boardroom. A terse note has arrived from the suits at HQ telling the boss to urgently reduce costs as the H1 or year-end result is not going to look pretty. Why do all the board…

On a daily basis the amount of care we give to the human body is remarkably little. When you are feeling in good shape, the best the body can hope for is a good wash, a brush of the teeth and a slap of moisturiser. What else? Haircut, skin peel and…

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Albert Einstein. I think most of us will be pleased to see the back of 2020. COVID 19 has changed the way we have had to live and work and anybody who thinks they…

Understanding the Total Cost to Serve our customers is an essential element to any Route to Market (RtM) Strategy. As FMCG professionals, we need to understand how much it costs us to service our customers. It is also not as simple as it sounds. Why…

There are many things I have seen in over 20 years in the unbelievably exciting Fast-Moving Consumer Goods Business (FMCG). There are many things I can talk about and stories I can tell. But since I was first handed the keys to a van in 1998 to…

The FMCG business is like a team sport. There are sales people sent into the field, to sell more products and beat their targets. There are players put on the sports field, charged with scoring points and winning the game. In both scenarios, if the…

Key Account Management (KAM) is how Route to Market (RtM) leaders effectively and efficiently manage the relationship with specific and strategic customers, or customer groupings, to deliver on RtM targets. Customers are classified as Key Accounts…

Welcome to my blog series on the 20 Steps to Route to Market Excellence model. Over the past number of months, we have gone through the detail of the first 15 steps of my model. The focus of this post is Step 16 ‘Third Degree Partnerships (3DPs)’.…

When we discuss Technology in terms of Route to Market (RtM) Strategy we are looking at our overall approach to and use of Technology at every stage of our RtM Strategy and Execution. This includes, for example, the hand-held system we take orders…

When I first came across Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) I was sceptical of yet another ”blue sky” approach to pursuing manufacturing excellence. Surely, this would soon be replaced by the next set of buzz-word initials dreamed up by sharp-suited…

The ink is dry on the deal, the celebratory corks have been popped and the sharp-suited lawyers have gone off to bank a small fortune. The projected negotiations to thrash out a deal to buy or merge with another company are finally over. Relief all…

There is your dilemma. You need to save cash towards an expensive year-end holiday but you really do not know the best place from where to take the money. Do you take it from your day to day current account which is already set up to pay the routine…

Only a few months into the year and I am hearing the same old complaints about the economy and business being in general ill health. However, there is a new recurring theme which popped up at various parties and gatherings over Easter; “my company…