Route to Market & Supply Chain Blog

Double Bio, then the weekend! Finally, Friday afternoon and looking forward to running out of school with a whole weekend of football ahead. Just a double Biology lesson to get through and then 2 days of freedom from books, blackboards and…

Deliver, deliver, deliver. Briefly, before we get stuck into today's article, I recently took a first-hand look at the ailing National Health Service in UK. Oh, how a little bit of demand and supply planning expertise plus a smidgeon of alternative…

Blinkers? While you are tackling the day to day routine of crises, meetings, strategy and more crises while fending off the results pressure from global/regional HQ, you can lose a grip on the reality of how your company is operating. Creeping…

The Enchange Supply Chain House; the one-stop shop for all of the elements you need to achieve supply chain excellence. In a recent article we looked at the Top Tips to make the SC-RtM interface a force for good and not a source of conflict, blame…

Welcome to the Deliver edition of our FMCG supply chain guide. The related Source, Plan and Make overview articles can be found here. Each discipline is a key room in the Enchange Supply Chain House which provides a guide to your supply chain…

Finally, Friday afternoon and looking forward to running out of school with a whole weekend of football ahead (other sports are available). Just a double Biology lesson to get through and then 2 days of freedom from books, blackboards and bugs.…

Many SKUs sneak onto FMCG price lists when nobody is looking and this is far from facilitating constructive market development. Sales & Marketing colleagues prefer new launches to provide lengthy lists of SKUs; different fragrances, different sizes,…

Before we even begin to look at how to develop Route to Market (RtM) strategies and execution plans for Fast Moving Consumer Goods Companies (FMCG) in emerging markets like Africa, we need to understand and remind ourselves of a few basic principles…

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…

A Distributor Partnership Programme, if designed and implemented correctly, can be one of the most powerful tools in the Route to Market (RtM) armory for delivering sales growth. A Distributor Partnership Programme sets out which individual…

What are Trade Incentive Programmes (TIPs)? TIPs are the mechanisms that you put in place to incentivise and encourage your trade partners (e.g. retail, distributor, cash & carry, wholesale, Horeca) to engage with and deliver on your Trade Marketing…

Firstly, what are Trade Tool Kits? They are the specific commercial tools and materials that we provide to our Trade Marketing & Distribution/Route to Market (RtM) teams to help get their jobs done and to deliver on their targets. They are the trade…

Let’s start at the beginning. When we talk about Channels, we are referring to channels of distribution to get products from a manufacturer to a consumer or customer. There are many ways to achieve distribution, e.g. direct to consumers (e.g.…

Do FMCG, Drinks & Pharma Companies delude themselves on Customer Service? I think some may well be doing this and may or may not know it! Whatever service related KPI you measure, the KPI is designed to asses how you are performing both internally…