White paper: Comprehensive Trade Management (PDF) - Oracle

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Setting IT budget priority that matches the level of
corporate spending and opportunity
Evolving from desktop tools and homegrown legacy
solutions to enterprise-class technology
There has been, over the past few years, a trend toward allocating
more IT dollars to the improvement of trade promotion
management. AMR reported that IT investment in trade
management averaged $6 million in 2007 and grew by more than
9% in 2008. 10 Executive management has become more focused on
Trade Promotion Management (TPM) funding and return – a clear
sign that IT spending is needed in this area.
The problem most consumer goods companies have is that the
layer of components that operate and/or manage the trade channel
are not equally shared, consistently managed or even under one
organizational responsibility. Each such component is often at
different stages of technical development or capability.
Often there are “home grown” applications with management and
maintenance that are inherited through the typical organizational
attrition, so the understanding of how they fit into the service of
the channel management spectrum is limited and often
disconnected from the rest of the process and technology owners.
The sales organization may own retail execution, the trends show
finance owns TPM, the brand marketing typically owns category
management and brokerage firms are often involved with the
annual customer planning. But linking, coalescing, and
reengineering these together is beyond typical transactional
definition and operations management. Therefore, a new
10 Trade Promotion Management in Consumer Products, Trends and Market
Trends, AMR Research, February, 2008
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