Get Started with Real-Time Reports
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Describe the benefits of real-time reports.
- Explain the advantages of real-time reports over other reporting tools.
- List the preconfigured reports included in Trade Promotion Management.
Before You Start
Before you start this module, consider completing the following recommended content.
Why Do You Need a Real-Time Report?
An important way that consumer goods manufacturers increase their market share and improve their brand value is by running promotions. Key account managers (KAMs) are the people responsible for planning and running promotions for their accounts. In turn, promotions help KAMs reach their sales goals. Part of the KAM’s role is to analyze the effectiveness of each promotion, and having great data is a KAM super-power.
But what makes great data? Data like sales figures before a promotion runs, increased sales figures when a promotion is running, and the cost of running a promotion, are crucial in analyzing a promotion’s success.
KAMs use various reporting tools to view data and analyze promotion performance, and TPM real-time reports give them an extended view of data in real time. This makes for a real advantage for KAMs.
Here are the benefits of the real-time reports you can build with TPM.
Benefit |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Configurable user interface
|
Decide how you want to display the data. For example, choose a scorecard, progress bar, or a simple matrix with rows and columns. |
Flexibility |
Choose the data you want to show in your report, such as data from all your accounts and all product levels in your sales organization. |
Filter data |
Use filters to tailor the data shown in a report. |
Accuracy |
Real-time reports fetch data from both Salesforce and Consumer Goods Processing Services (CGPS), ensuring that you’re always showing the latest data. |
Cost-effective |
There’s no additional cost associated with real-time reports. |
Easy to use |
Once an account plan real-time report is configured, you can embed it in the Promotions page. So, whenever you change a promotion, you can see the impact of those changes in the account plan in real time. |
Meet Real-Time Reports
When it comes to reports, one size doesn't fit all. Different KAMs have different requirements for their reports. Imagine that one KAM wants to see the impact of a promotion on their account plan. Namely, they’re interested in account plan data. A different KAM needs to know the amount spent on each tactic for their planned promotions, so they’re interested in claim-tactic data.
To cater for differences like this, KAMs need the flexibility to design fact-based reports that use the same KPIs and calculation rules used in various Trade Promotion Management (TPM) processes. To this end, real-time reports give KAMs a live view of critical business metrics to help them make good decisions during account planning, promotion execution, and post-event data analysis.
Here’s an example of a monthly account plan real-time report.
The report shows products, KPIs, and time duration, with options to filter the data.
Preconfigured Real-Time Reports
TPM includes a few preconfigured reports, which help KAMs get started.
-
Account Plan Report: Provides a list of products with their planned volume, including options to choose the time range and specific products
-
Promotion Report: Shows the revenue or profit for a single promotion, plus detailed information and aggregated total values in the scorecard
-
Promotion Tactic Report: Compares the actual and planned costs of promotions and tactics, as well as their contribution towards volume and profit
-
Payment Report: Lists the amount spent for a tactic and product, along with their planned funds or remaining liability
Step into the Shoes of Alpine Group
Alpine Group’s KAM, Gustavo De Luca, manages their nutrition and beverage product sales in the NTO retail stores.
Gustavo often reviews several account plan P&Ls at once, struggling with multiple Excel files and limited screen space. His current system only shows one account view and up to four product hierarchy levels at a time. He wants a much clearer picture of Alpine’s nutrition and beverage performance across all NTO stores, but his current tools fall short.
Gustavo finds it difficult to plan promotions. He needs to understand how increased sales from a promotion affect the account plan, so he’s looking for a way to experiment with promotion numbers and observe their impact.
Fatima Daniels, the Salesforce admin at Alpine Group, comes to the rescue.
She offers to create a real-time account plan report and embed it in the Promotions page. Gustavo loves the idea because this enables him to change promotion numbers and instantly see the impact.
In this unit, you learned about the benefits of real-time reports and the preconfigured reports available in TPM. Next, you explore the components that make up real-time reports.