Clorox Hits Home Run with Complex Solution Delivery

Congratulations are in order for the Clorox Professional Products Division!

We are celebrating our customer for their achievements in trade spend automation.

Clorox, best known for its branded bleach and various consumer goods products, became a Blacksmith TPM customer in 2018.

Clorox’s Sales Systems and Process Manager Jan Reynolds, and team Beth Real, Heather Gossett, Shaher Bano, Stephanie Fares, Lauren Walker, and Alorah Wulff joined us to chat about the great progress made over the last few years.

The Clorox team was excited about the award. “We chuckled when we saw the award’s name, because we know we needed to build a complex trade solution,” says Reynolds.

Real adds, “It’s crazy to think how long we’ve been working with Blacksmith now. There’s been so much progress made.”

The Blacksmith and Clorox teams met up on a virtual call to celebrate their hard work and trade spend accomplishments. 

Complexity

“Our project together was not the easiest, but it wound up being a valuable solution for your organization,” says Paul Wietecha, Blacksmith CEO and President. That’s what we’re recognizing. This project was complex; there was a lot of difficult testing. The Clorox team put so much effort in. “We really appreciate Clorox’s partnership,” he continues. The solution does what the team needed it to. It’s been a fantastic effort from the Clorox team, and now they’re seeing well-deserved results.

When we started this project a few years ago, we had complex conversations about brokerage fees and rebates, Robert Grimsley, Blacksmith Applications Project Manager remembers. He says, “This team hit a home run.”

Grimsley continues, “Boy, talk about complex. The delivery of this solution is where the Clorox team has been so critical. This is a team full of great ideas. They’re smart and they’re engaged. After a couple of years in the TPM solution, we can see impressive process improvements.”

“I really appreciate the Blacksmith team’s continued support,” says Shaher Bano. “You guys are very prompt and efficient in communication with us.”

Progress and Achievements

The Blacksmith TPM solution has put Clorox in a better place than where they were before implementation. “This application has proven to be very beneficial for us,” says Reynolds.

Clorox has streamlined its processes so much to build real results:

REBATES

With rebate file uploads, each batch that goes through, there’s much less work to do. On average, across all GPOs, there’s about 1,500 files that upload automatically (which was the goal),” Real notes. The last few months have seen smooth file uploads. “We processed our first rebating file about 13 months ago,” she continues.

COMMISSIONS

We’re hitting our target data on commissions too. The process is much easier with Blacksmith TPM. “We’ve had some good wins out of this tool,” says Reynolds.

TIME

With TPM automation, “we’ve cut 4 or 5 days out of the process” Real adds.

FUTURE

Even with these accomplishments, this team continues to think of ways they can get out of the trade system’s automation.

“We’ve come so far, and we have some more ideas to build out the system more.” There’s more this group wants to improve on, and we’ll be there each step of the way to help with their success.