Conagra’s Commitment to Trade Spend Excellence
We are celebrating our very first customer, Conagra Brands,
for their commitment to trade spend excellence.
Typically, we celebrate our customer awards during our Smoke Jumpers event. However, as we adjust to business changes related to the pandemic, we instead jumped on a video call to talk about the company’s accomplishments, trade processes and remarkable partnership.
Trade Software Advocacy
The Conagra foodservice team understands the importance of reliable software solutions. They utilize trade spend technology to more effectively and efficiently analyze, manage and optimize their trade investments.
“This tool is a huge part of our day-to-day life,” says Matt Strendey, Conagra’s Business Development Manager.
THE VALUE OF BUSINESS PARTNERSHIPS
“Blacksmith is grateful for Conagra’s long commitment to our company and our products,” says Account Manager Mike Leiker. “They use their voice in the industry to show other CPG companies the benefits of automated trade solutions.”
“Blacksmith has been a great business partner. When you have two parties striving for the same goal – that’s when you improve the bottom line,” Stredney replies.
TRADE MANAGEMENT UTILIZATION
Conagra leverages Blacksmith TPM software for profit and efficiency, and has seen incredible results.
The Conagra foodservice team initiated a deviation request process that eliminated Excel spreadsheets that duplicated workflows. Now, every action is logged in Blacksmith TPM with a timestamp and user name.
The visibility is incredible, but so is the improvement to margin visibility. Deal level P&Ls show all layers of direct trade that a category lead could be signed up for.
Conagra describes Blacksmith TPM as very intuitive and user-friendly. Trade spending analyst Sulaymaan Muhammad joined the Conagra team about two years ago and say
It’s great to have Blacksmith tools at my disposal – Blacksmith gives me considerable access to data – and what I learn is valuable.
-Sulaymaan Muhammad, Conagra Brands
ADVANCED ANALYTICS IN ACTION
Now, the influential company is jumping into the latest in foodservice analytics software, Advanced Analytics from Blacksmith Applications. Right off the bat, Conagra liked that the tool’s dashboards were easy to consume.
With this tool, we can tailor visual reports to functional groups.
-Matt Stredney, Conagra Brands
Conagra has plans for many corporate functions to derive value from the analytics platform including business development, sales, finance, deduction management, and category marketing.
The dashboards provide the entire organization with an understanding of macro trends. Strendey concludes, “this tool is a huge win for the company.”
Members of the Conagra team enjoy a Cubs game with Blacksmith.
Forward-Thinking
Jennifer Greenman, Senior Director of Finance concludes, “Thank you so much for this honor, I’m proud of Matt, Sulaymaan, Ryan, and Alex for leveraging this tool for our business. This is a great partnership.”
Looking ahead, we will continue to grow our decades-long relationship with Conagra. We applaud them for their commitment to industry excellence and are thrilled to announce their win for this year’s Brand Evangelism award.
About Conagra Brands:
For almost 100 years, Conagra Brands has been making great food. And for nearly 20 years, they’ve been managing trade spend using trade promotion management (TPM) software.
Conagra’s portfolio of popular food brands continues to evolve to offer contemporary choices for every occasion. The companies brands — Birds Eye, Slim Jim, Earth Balance, Marie Callender’s, Swiss Miss, and PAM (to name a few) — are found in your local grocery store and at your favorite restaurant.
