Last spring, we surveyed 500 global consumer goods (CG) leaders about the fight to remain relevant and future-proof in today’s evolving, hypercompetitive CG landscape. While 95% of CG products are still sold in physical stores, a significant 52% of CG leaders say merchandising and marketing plans aren’t executed as intended.
We understand that retail execution falls squarely on the sales rep’s shoulders, but productivity in the field is split. That’s why today at Groceryshop, we announced the launch of Consumer Goods Cloud, which will enable closer connections across the entire CG value chain — from retail channel customers to the end consumer.
Consumer Goods Cloud is built on the core Salesforce platform, giving brands the power to transform how they collaborate with retail channel partners. Through automation, artificial intelligence, and guided selling capabilities, reps spend less time on operational activities and more time on what matters most: building relationships.
How Consumer Goods Cloud works
Optimize planning and store visits
Of the $200 billion that CG companies allocate to trade spend annually, $104 billion of that is opportunity left on the table for better retail execution. With the right data, the right products get on the right shelves at the right price and time.
Consumer Goods Cloud gives account managers a 360-degree view of sales targets, orders, promotions, and other key account insights from a single platform. This view empowers account managers to prioritize store visits with field teams, collaborate on key tasks, and service accounts with access to lookups, workflows, and approvals.
Consumer Goods Cloud also helps on-the-ground field reps optimize store visits, tasks, scheduling, and routes. Reps have access to all essential data at their fingertips from their mobile devices for the most productive store visits, including:
- Store name
- Location
- Hours
- Estimated visit time
- Previous visit details
This capability also ensures every task is completed onsite with a checklist for inventory audits, planogram compliance, return order processing, and surveys. Templates can also be customized based on individual store needs or segment types. This improves promotional effectiveness and decreases the room for error at retail execution.
Audit shelves quickly and accurately
Reps can accelerate inventory, planogram, and merchandising compliance with Einstein Vision. Using their mobile device, reps scan store shelves as Einstein measures share of shelf and identifies out-of-stock products, optimizing product mix and selling potential.
Reps can also leverage Einstein for intelligent product recommendations to boost order volume and average order size. Key data such as category, product, quantity, pricing, discounts, promotions, and unit of measure can all be captured from their mobile devices.
Close the feedback loop
Consumer Goods Cloud helps reps strengthen relationships by closing the feedback loop with store managers and account managers through automated surveys. Reps stay focused on providing excellent service to customers on the ground as feedback is automatically sent to account managers.
Get started
Consumer Goods Cloud is available when you’re ready to make every store the perfect store, see our press release, newsroom post, and visit our overview page.
