Integration with Trade Promotions Management Systems
It is natural to consider integrating a Trade Spending Effectiveness (TSE) solution, such as M-Factor’s T4, with existing Trade Promotions Management (TPM) systems from leading vendors such as SAP, Oracle, CAS, Adesso Solutions, or MEI. While M-Factor establishes an optimal trade allocation strategy based on predicted business results, TPM can administer the details of the promotion cycle, from account event scheduling through tracking trade dollars for a specific product, brand, and account all the way to claim settlement.
Linking the two introduces sophisticated TSE analytics and optimization into planning at the detailed level of individual events, the “Holy Grail” of account teams everywhere. M-Factor supports two levels of direct integration through its open APIs:
To provide visibility into the projected incremental sales lift for each type of trade event, M-Factor can load volume coefficient tables within a TPM system. As a result, a TPM user planning events for a more effective retail account promotion calendar can make direct comparisons of potential trade events without leaving the TPM system.
When creating a TPM event, the user may request a "what- if" simulation of results to understand complex interactions such as cannibalization effects. This requires passing relevant information about the event such as event type, products, locations, etc. to M-Factor where the analytics engine can run the models to predict the event economics.
For more information, contact M-Factor today.