Route to Market & Supply Chain Blog

Sorry to be a little direct right at the start but make no mistake Mr/Mrs. FMCG Producer, YOU put the stock there, oh yes you did! Distributors don't buy stock for a laugh and a giggle as they like full shelves. Excess stock blocks up their shelves…

Ok, I know I should not have gone there. It was Sunday and well before the live Premier League football on the TV. The weather was cold, the air was full of drizzle and as I turned off the overgrown roundabout the scale of my folly dawned; the IKEA…

Dear Drinks Agony Aunt, I have reached the end of my patience. I’m drinking too much coffee, too much beer, I smoke like a chimney, I’m not eating properly and I just cannot sleep. I have not managed to watch or play any of my favourite sports and…

Probably sitting at number two in the most popular excuses offered when FMCG sales did not happen as planned is parallel or grey trade. Without doubt greys, “passing off” and counterfeits can have an impact on FMCG sales but I was surprised how they…

FMCG producers are often far too ready to blame their Distributors when sales do not go to plan and targets are not met. However, it is rarely all their fault particularly if producers are not clear on what is expected. To help Producers understand…

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein How many of you will be reaching for an electric cigarette or giving up smoking altogether for the New Year? How long will it be before visits to the…

We have invested in a new waste bin for the kitchen. Even with our strict regime of recycling as much waste as possible that small flip-up bin inside a cupboard just was not big enough. Yes, the lid dutifully popped up when the cupboard door was…

Ok, so maybe not for life but FMCG Distributors will have a significant impact on your sales performance, probably your personal bonus and therefore your CEO career! How have you treated them this year? Were they the usual pain in the proverbial -…

Client: Santa Claus aka Father Christmas, Kris Kringle, St Nick Market: Most of the World Scope: Reindeer To Market (RTM) Distribution Deliverable: Evaluation of RTM against sector benchmarks Summary of Evaluation Click here to enlarge The project…

I am not going to pretend I wrote this blog once again but when I came to sit down and look at the last quarter of the year I could not really see any difference from last year. The same challenges are clearly there and what is astonishing is that…

I previously blogged about the reality of FMCG Traditional Trade (TT) Route To Market (RTM) distribution and described the drivers and behaviours in each party as the monthly plans inevitably imploded. Let us now get out the crystal ball and stare…

Summer has finally reached Romania and this will be good news for all the beer, water and soft drinks producers. Nothing raises sales like a scorching yellow disc in a clear blue sky. One of the classic summer tracks is Here Comes Summer by a…

I am approaching end of tether time with some potential clients. If they were our clients then they would not have to endure the routine monthly disruption. Why do major FMCG producers always think they are in the right and their TT partners are…

The human heart. Unless you are a little bit dead or a politician we all have one beating away inside. Thinking a little out of the box, what an excellent supply chain the heart is! Oxygenated blood is pumped through arteries around the body in just…

In my previous two blogs on the subject, I outlined how producers (manufacturers) can achieve very significant improvements in the financial performance of their supply chains by a process of integration between the primary and secondary supply…