Blacksmith TPM: What’s Next?

TPM Material Recap:
2017 Blacksmith Foodservice TPM User Conference

In October 2017, Blacksmith Applications hosted a Customer User Conference during Smoke Jumpers at the Chicago Athletic Association.

Our customer community came together to learn about the evolution of Blacksmith’s trade promotion management software.

The 4 main sessions covered:

1. Next Generation Analytics
2. Blacksmith TPM 8.0 Enhancements
3. Retail Planner Progress
4. Claims Efficiency Overview

Here are the CliffsNotes of the material covered ➥

Key points  from the Next Generation Analytics presentation: 

❝Accessibility was a priority for us. It’s a big win to log into one place.❞
-Steve Thompson, Senior Consultant, Blacksmith Applications 

• The new analytics portal is easy to use; its intuitive design includes interactive dashboards, dynamic searching, simplified user account options, and streamlined export/scheduling.

• You’re able to access the portal from any device or browser – the analytics portal is device agnostic

• Thumbnails and descriptions of each report are available. Edit, export and schedule your reports from one screen.

• The Standard Reports folder includes Blacksmith Applications standard package of analytics reports.
  • Includes: analysis, audit, auto pay, billback(s), deduction(s), invoice/billing document(s), program(s)

• The Custom Reports folder houses the client managed public reports. These reports are commonly custom-built for the client based on their needs.

• My Reports, formerly named “My Favorites”, shows the reports you’re working on.

• The inbox will direct the user to the reports which have been sent to them in the Blacksmith Analytics inbox.

• Blacksmith Applications is on track to completely deploy the enhanced Blacksmith Analytics portal by July 2018.

❝With the new analytics package, we’ll visualize data better, dive deeper into the data and truly understand how we’re working with distributors, how we’re working with street and contract business, really trying to improve profitability and drive business. It’s a futuristic look, driving foodservice where it should be.❞
-Chris DeLorme, Sr. Financial Analyst, Conagra Brands

Key Points related to TPM Version 8 Functionality Enhancements:

• Formula Price
  • You don’t need more excel files – they’re tedious since customers all have different formulas.
  • In the application, formula price will be centralized and calculate/maintain formula price.
  • Steps to create formula price:
    • Schedule (determine how often you want that formula price to be calculated – depends on product)
    • Type (determine how much sample size you want to look at for the commodity to establish the price)
    • Commodities (choose the commodity to use in your formula)
    • Factors/Weight (build the formula / compounded method or independent calculation)

• Blended / Effective Rate
  • “How much should I really be paying on shelter or earned income, if not, how much that distributor is buying at full list price versus a discounted price?”
  • No more need to use excel sheets to maintain and analyze effective rates on an annual basis.
  • Select the product and enter the rate that the distributor should get for full list value and discounted value – that calculated rate is what the TPM application determines as the blended rate.

• Auto Pay
  • The TPM auto pay page displays all history of reports. In Blacksmith TPM V8, there are built in filtering tools so you can pinpoint exactly what you need.
  • Run an auto pay and pick which distributors and/or invoices to include in the auto pay.
  • Program Pacing, Monthly Pacing: See fluctuations on what you’ve paid in the past and see if you are in the ballpark of payments.
  • Open Pay Periods: See if you have missed any payments on a specific program.

• Payment History ($)
  • View high-level payment history by month and year how much has been paid out.
  • Answer these questions: Was there a payment made that’s not in the program? Are there products on the program that no one claimed? What payees are not paying?
  • View summary of sales estimation of sales dollars, where is it tracking, and forecasting on how many days are left – so you can see if sales overestimated volume or underestimated.
  • If the program is set to approve, accrual data is provided – how many dollars, specific distributor, which account that accrual is hitting.

Key Points from the Better Retail Business Planning presentation:

• A real-time promotional tool for CPG retail business – use one TPM application for regional business to add trade plans, forecasting, tracking, and reporting.

• For most companies, trade planning and sales forecasting are completely separate activities – now they will find the happy medium – using one tool to see trade investment and sales forecast.

• Connected features in the retail planner:
  • Calendar
  • Volume Plan
  • Direct and Indirect Planners
  • Planner Margin Analysis
  • Reporting/Analytics

• Define the planner template. Sales can add the events, create programs, find detail to each event without clicking in – know when it’s running, what type of event, delivery dates, volume, and more.

• Planners can be pre-populated with last year’s volume – and updated as necessary. Users can copy and paste demand planner or prior year planner as needed.

• Volume plan takes prior year volume and copies it forward to the latest forward. As you create programs, when you update the volume in a program, it pushes back to the volume plan to see volume forecast by item and week.

• Create and evaluate a single customer plan that rolls up with individual events.

• Provide financials for the customer in total and each individual event.

• Provide analysis of actual results against approved plan, shipping information, claims that come in, IRI/AC, Neilson syndicated data.

❝If we can work with your IRI or AC Neilson provider, we can bring in that information in as well, so you can see the promotion effectiveness.❞
~  Kelly Cole, Professional Services, Blacksmith Applications

Key Points to Simplify Trade Activity:

• Establish automated rules and flags.

• Consider the benchmarks and thresholds at your business:
  • Do you have a $200 tolerance? A $50 tolerance? How do you think about rationalization of deductions?
  • What gets auto approved? Which deductions matter?
  • Establish guidelines to simplify and route materials through the system.

• EDI – Sysco, US Foods, Bunzl / Upload with Alias
  • Export EDI files.
  • Upload the files. Establish the cross-references.

• Holding Pen is a feature created that don’t go to billbacks and WIP. Download to excel – keep in a suspended state until you can fix the mistakes.