Once the Promotional Event is created, the Marketing department and the Purchase department will work closely on the research of products.

PRODUCT RESEARCH

The Marketing team defines the products that should be part of the Promotional Event. There are many ways to find a product:

• The Buyer can be source supplier corresponding to the request of the Marketing Team (this can be done through our solution ibs DataSync)
• The Product can be already existing in the referential of the retailer

Different criteria for the research that can be used:

• Static Data:
  • Products Characteristics
  • Suppliers Characteristics
    • Ability of the supplier's production
    • Negotiation Conditions
    • Supplier History
  • Unit Need
  • Items lists dedicated to the promotions
  • Marketing attributes
• Movement Data:
  
  • Key indicators
    • Sales Quantity
    • Sales Values
    • Margin
    • Profitability criteria
    • Promotional elasticity criteria
  • Over-Stock

The Buyer can also be an input in the offer building and suggests products to the Marketing team already negotiated with a supplier.

PRODUCT DEFINITION

Once the product is found, the different teams involved in the product management will work on every product angles.

Price Information

• Cost Once the product is found, the Buyer determines the cost of the product. ibs Promotions enables different functionalities.
  When the cost is not yet known from the Supplier, the Buyer has the possibility to determine an expected cost (in the meantime, this will make possible to work on the product and especially on the retailer price, forecasted sales and margin)
  When the cost is known from the Supplier, the Buyer has the possibility to choose which Supplier and which logistic channel will be used.
  • ibs Promotions gives the possibility to determine a percentage of goods ordered from the Supplier
  • If the Buyer orders goods from different Suppliers, a global cost can be calculated (this will give the possibility to work on the Retailer price, forecasted sales and margin)
  • ibs Promotions takes into account all the additional costs in the calculation of the global one
• Promotional Price Once the Cost is determined, the Pricing department works on the Promotional Price that will be seen by the final customer in store. This Promotional Price takes into account the cost, the margin and sales objectives.
  A Promotional Price may use or not a Discount. ibs Promotions enables to determine various discounts from the simple to the complex one.
  • Simple Discount: in % (ex: 10% on Cola), in value (ex: 0.30 cents on Cola), new promo price (ex: Cola at 0.90$)
  • BOGO: Buy one product and get the same product with a discount (ex: Buy one Cola and get the second at 50% off)
  • Scale: The more the customer buys, the more he gets discount (ex: Buy one to 6 cola bottle and get 10% off, Buy more than 6 cola bottle and get 20% off)
  • Bundle: Buy one product and get another product with a discount (ex: Buy one Cola and get chips at 50% off)
  ibs Promotions enables also to determine the application of this discount:
  • This can be done immediately at the cashier
  • This can be a cashback (client account which is credited by the amount of the promotion)
  • This can be given through a coupon
  Once the Discount is chosen, the Pricing Team fixes the promotional price taking into account the discount, margin objectives and psychological price. To save time in this tasks, different tools are available:
  • Management of the Price by Pricing Zone (grouping of stores with the same sales area behaviour)
  • Rounding of the calculated price
  • Direct margin calculation

Forecast
Once the Cost and Price are determined, the Marketing team is then able to proceed with the Forecasted Sales and Forecasted Needs for the ordering process. ibs Analytics, our embedded and intelligent forecast engine, will be able to provide the users of ibs Promotions these data. Indeed, ibs Promotions enables the user to take into account forecasted data or not. But users still remain the last decision-makers.

Media Information

• Media Allocation The Marketing team works with the Purchase department on the Media Allocation. Indeed, the Purchase team receives empty spaces in the Flyer and allocate then products on pages. The Marketing team will then review the products allocated.
• Marketing attributes management (new products, text …) The Marketing defines different information on the product (logo, text) that aims to inform the stores (helping to define the needed quantity to be ordered) and Ad Agency (to build the physical flyer)
  
  Those functionalities are detailed in "Media Design and Communication" part.

Information dedicated to Stores

• Stores Commitment According to the retailer organization, a Promotional event may be imposed on stores or headquarters can let the stores subscribe to the promotional event. From a business perspective the Supply Chain department wants to know the quantities desired by the store before ordering. Thanks to the information defined in ibs Promotions (price, cost, marketing attributes, etc), the stores will receive a full list of products and its related characteristics allowing them to decide which products and what quantities they should order. This process is supported by the "Supply-Chain Operation Suite".
• In-Store items location: ibs Promotions enables all stakeholders to communicate easily. Depending on the tasks management, the Space managers receive an alert notifying them to start the specific planogram for the promotional event. The overall plan and planogram building process is supported by the solution ibs Space Planning.

TOOLS DEDICATED TO THE PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

• Group of products as an ease of use ibs Promotions enables to select either a single product or many products that will have the same characteristics. It helps saving time in the management of the product (ex: application of the same discount to a group of product or allocation of the same page).
  
  ibs Promotions enables to select this group of products by selecting a level of product hierarchy (ex: all the chocolate hierarchy), a brand (ex: all the Nestlé product)and, a supplier (ex: all the Procter and Gamble)
  
  ibs Promotions allows also to create unit needs with a more or less detailed description. The unit need functions in ibs Promotions the same way as a product. The unit need can have an expected cost, expected price, expected margin, allocation on a page of a flyer and contain some information. Once the product is found, it inherits the same information of the unit need. It helps the product management save time.
• Product Simulation The promotional event building is a long and complex process that requires many back and forth between different users. Many changes are being made during all the process. The simulations provided by ibs Promotions help the user to choose the best product mix or the best prices to achieve the objectives. The user can select different items and group them to compare the performance. The What-if scenario allow to consolidate impacts at the corporate, store group or store level view of the promotion performance, and automated tasks increase the productivity of all actors.