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CLIENT CASE STUDY

Consumer goods company improves sales with NewsPage solution

A global consumer goods company leverages Accenture's cloud-based NewsPage solution to streamline business processes and improve sales.

OVERVIEW

Accenture helped a global consumer goods company implement the Accenture NewsPage Distributor Management System (DMS) to gain better, faster insights into its field force, distributor and retailer activities, and to comply with the local tax structures, particularly in India.

A team from Accenture implemented the solution to in three of the company’s key South Asian markets. Accenture also trained the client’s technical team to help them undertake subsequent roll outs on their own, resulting in improved in-house capabilities and cost savings for the company. The Accenture NewsPage DMS solution exceeded the company’s operational requirements. By feeding orders directly into the system, the consumer goods company has the ability to track daily sales and inventory data in real-time along with sales force and distributor performance. The solution has allowed the company to raise timely, error-free invoices, access customer and product master data, and implement and track the effectiveness of promotional offers. The Accenture NewsPage DMS solution also offers a cloud based option where consumer goods companies can avoid substantial up-front costs.

OPPORTUNITY

Rapid urbanization and changing consumption patterns in the South Asian market presented tremendous growth opportunities for a leading global consumer goods company. However, the lack of organized retail infrastructure proved to be a challenge.

With a retail environment where both mom-and-pop stores and supermarkets coexist, and with large parts of the consumer base living in dispersed rural areas where communication was difficult, the company struggled with tracking the activities of the field sales force, which were controlled by third-party distributors. Moreover, the time to market for the company’s new products and promotional offers were hindered by the complex tax structure in India.

SOLUTION

The first country implementation was started by the Accenture team, and was the largest and most complicated portion of the project with more than 3,000 back-office users and more than 5,000 mobile handheld users in scope.

Accenture provided a strategy by mapping the company’s specific requirements in the company’s system—especially the complex promotion- and tax-related requirements—to create a roadmap for customizations. Although much of the functionality is available out-of-the-box, the solution helps companies to customize according to local needs and business requirements. The implementation team then created custom interfaces for the DMS system to interact with the company’s existing ERP systems.

The Accenture NewsPage DMS solution also offers a cloud based option where consumer goods companies can avoid substantial up-front costs. Following a pilot implementation, Accenture started rolling out the solution to the company’s more than 3,000 distributors. Accenture also trained the client’s technical team to help them undertake subsequent roll outs on their own, resulting in improved in-house capabilities and cost savings for the company. A second and third implementation followed and included a customized solution for use on various mobile operating systems including Android OS. The third country roll out was for over 75 back-office users and 700 mobile users, and was entirely handled by the client’s technical team with support from Accenture.

RESULTS

The Accenture NewsPage DMS solution exceeded the company’s operational requirements and further restored the company’s confidence in its data to make informed business decisions. With orders fed directly into the system, the consumer goods company has the ability to track daily sales and inventory data in real-time along with sales force and distributor performance.

The solution has allowed the company to raise timely, error-free invoices, access customer and product master data, and implement and track the effectiveness of promotional offers. Moreover, Accenture NewsPage DMS is able to handle a huge customer base without impacting the system’s performance. By helping the sales people to create new customer profiles in real time, the handheld systems have also helped in expanding the company’s customer base.