A partnership for growth driving FMCG brands

Alliance Marketing, a New Zealand based broker and distributor, selected Insightful.Mobi's CRM solution for retail execution, store promotions and merchandising in 2015. Since then, they've found increased efficiency across their supply chain, helping them to better service the FMCG brands they represent.

About Alliance Marketing

Established in 2014, Alliance Marketing works with leading FMCG brands to market, merchandise and sell products through retail channels across New Zealand. Acting as the main sales arm for their clients, Alliance Marketing executes trade promotion, sales and merchandising initiatives with a growing team of territory managers and sales merchandisers.

The challenge

As a brokerage for their clients, Alliance Marketing has a wealth of data to measure and report on accurately. With a growing team of territory managers and merchandisers across New Zealand, and the fast pace of the FMCG industry, they were looking for an FMCG-focused sales force automation (SFA) / CRM tool that was efficient, accurate and adaptable.

The solution

Insightful.Mobi delivered Sales IM, a cloud-based SFA/CRM system that gave Alliance Marketing an all-in-one answer to their management, resourcing and reporting challenges: an adaptable, centralised system with live, up-to-date data that works across every area of their supply chain.

The result

Sales IM streamlined Alliance Marketing's business processes. With the ability to adapt as their industry does and add new features as required, Alliance Marketing found a long-term solution in Insightful.Mobi's Sales IM.

A need for control at speed

With a large team and multiple clients, Alliance Marketing had many moving parts and no efficient system to oversee them all. Soon after the business was purchased in 2014, it was clear they needed a better way to manage sales, distribution and merchandising, and to give their principal clients more accurate and timely reports.

They needed a system that could keep up with the industry while handling multiple brands and products at once, moving beyond largely manual processes to streamlined data management and more accurate reporting. An off-the-shelf CRM from a vendor without FMCG experience wasn't an option.

An adaptable system and an accommodating partner

Insightful.Mobi approached Alliance Marketing to become the official launch partner for its new SFA solution: Alliance needed a flexible system that fitted their operations, and Insightful.Mobi needed a launch partner to field test with.

The process began in 2015. Karen explains, "We worked in tandem, it was very much a trial setup. The ideation process began in 2015, but it took around a year until the system was fully up and running."

Jamielle Clayton-Greene, Alliance Marketing National Business Manager, explains, "Insightful.Mobi was great at accommodating and listening to our feedback. They didn't just give it to us and leave us… the team were always available and ready to help us improve outcomes and efficiencies when and where we needed them." Adding, "Insightful.Mobi built a custom integration to Nielsen data which we use to measure and report on distribution data."

That integration gives Alliance Marketing more accurate and efficient reporting for their principal clients. Karen explains, "Anything that requires manual input obviously leaves room for error… through this integration, we have the assurance that the distribution reports we produce for internal and principal clients are 100% accurate."

"Insightful.Mobi is now pivotal in our everyday. We rely on our SFA/CRM tool to match all promotions, presenters, and documentation. It is our teams' main source of information; both the territory managers and the merchandisers." — Jamielle Clayton-Greene

Territory managers and merchandisers use the product update functionality for live data on a product's shelf life, helping the field team quickly identify which products are "in danger".

System adaptability offered increased results

Alliance Marketing focuses on continuous improvement and credits Sales IM as a solution that keeps up. Karen explains, "The development process is very fluid and collaborative. Insightful.Mobi is always willing to hear our feedback and make improvements where they can."

Jamielle adds, "Continual updates mean you can always go that one step further. The latest update our territory managers have been utilising is the graph format, which is helping them to quickly identify gains and risks within their territory."

"We use it as an in-field tool, reporting tool and HR tool. It's a one-stop-shop. It covers our whole supply chain," explains Karen. The team uses it for everything from tracking in-store displays with photos, to letting merchandisers see how long they are in store and adapt call times, to HR running exception reports on who has deviated from call runs.

Overall, Insightful.Mobi has given Alliance Marketing more accuracy and automation through one centralised system, cutting double-handling of data and reliance on third-party applications. "Because of this we've had increased efficiency across the board," Karen adds.