Manufacturers

How Kinetic12 Helped

Kinetic12 conducted interviews with the client’s key national account and distributor customers, as well as potential new customers, and researched the client’s key competitors.  Utilizing a proprietary customer benchmarking methodology, we focused on establishing what the client’s key customers felt made a supplier “best-in-class” in sales, supply chain, innovation and marketing support.

Additionally, the client and their competitors were score carded against what each customer viewed as best-in-class. During the process, Kinetic12 uncovered what each customer valued most and what frustrated them when it came to supplier support and specifically related to the client’s performance.

Kinetic12 then delivered a customized best-in-class supplier report, including: 

• A new customized Best-in-Class Supplier Model and explanation
• A detailed Benchmark Analysis of how the client scored against the model
• Customer verbatims on what the client did well and where customers saw growth opportunities
• Insight (including strengths & weaknesses) on how their competition was perceived by their customers
• Recommendations on what actions the client should take to move their organization closer to best-in-class
  

Results

As a result of this work, the client adopted a new approach to chain account and distributor sales that leveraged their strengths, addressed their weaknesses and ensured their entire organization was focused on what their customer valued most from a supplier. 

Key actions implemented by the client included:

• Better utilization of value-added resources, such as culinary and insights, against key accounts
• Consistent approach to customer communication/information sharing, such as supply chain reporting
• New sales training program launched
• Sales team performance tracking and reporting updated
  

How Kinetic12 Helped

Kinetic12 worked with the foodservice leadership team to develop an updated operator segmentation framework.  The new model used a mix of quantitative and qualitative metrics focused on segmenting customers & potential customers based on the following:



• Current Financial Importance to Manufacturer
• Future Financial Opportunity for Manufacturer
• Strategic Fit and Business Alignment

After a thorough analysis, we discovered that a significant portion of the additional customer investment, including trade spend and sales and marketing resource time, was directed toward tactical customers who offered limited financial benefits and were not aligned with the organization's growth goals. Our analysis also identified several growth customers who had a higher probability of driving sales growth and were more well-aligned from a strategic fit perspective, but were not being resourced effectively.

Results

The client restructured where they spent their time and money at a customer level and leaned into more profitable growth customers to accelerate their business. 



• Large tactical customers received more selective investments, mitigating spend while decreasing costs 
• Growth customers were allocated more resources and trade-spend than previously, which accelerated their growth in more profitable accounts

As a result of implementing these strategies, sales growth increased by +7%, customer investments reduced by 15%, trade spend decreased, cost to serve decreased, and sales resources time spent servicing their customers reduced, making for a more profitable and sustainable business. Our client now has a segmentation model that can be updated as their business evolves to keep them growing strategically in the years to come.

Brand Strategy and Positioning

In a cluttered world of messaging and brands that echo one another, it can be hard for customers to distinguish one company from the next. Our goal is to make sure your brand is poised with clarity and distinction, and that your brand communicates a unique point of difference.

We have a customized process to arrive at your brand’s functional and emotional benefits, and ensure that your brand positioning resonates in today’s marketplace with your target customer. Through a process grounded in data and insight we create strong brand positions that are a unique point of difference in your category.

Research & Insight Development

Good foresight comes from insight. At Kinetic12 we help turn your data into actionable insights that can inform your strategic planning, your brand plans and possibly change how you talk to customers.

We believe business decisions must be grounded in insights, based in facts and data. Success requires taking the time to gather the knowledge to build compelling and actionable insights that lead to sound business decisions.

We are experienced in qualitative research and our partnership with Datassential gives you access to a team of research experts grounded exclusively in the foodservice industry.

With higher consumer expectations and constantly evolving tastes, the demand for innovation in the world of food is greater than ever. Operators must work harder than ever to satisfy today’s consumers, they look for manufacturers to offer an on-trend portfolio and innovation strategies to meet consumer’s multiple needs and eating occasions.

We take a disciplined and strategic approach to assessing your product or service mix and develop a long-term portfolio strategy for your business. Whether you want to strengthen your innovation pipeline or build a new holistic portfolio strategy, we can help.

Put your energy where you’ll see the most returns. As customer demands continue to change, it is imperative that manufacturers identify the biggest growth opportunities and invest resources against their most valuable customers.

Kinetic12 helps manufacturers build customer segmentation models based not only on size but profitability, alignment and projected future growth. We have developed industry best practices and strategic models for operator collaboration and joint business planning. Through this disciplined approach, we can help you grow your customer relationships.

Organizational Design and Process Improvement

Organizational design is more than a new organization chart. It’s a detailed analysis of the big picture and the smallest details – looking everywhere for fresh opportunities and new ways of thinking. We know your business is more likely to deliver long-term, sustainable growth if your organization’s design, structure and processes are developed carefully and strategically.

Organization designs are challenged by disruption in current marketplace dynamics, strategy changes and internal cost structures that are no longer competitive. We help you develop optimal organization design that ensures clear understanding of the work to be accomplished and ensures that your company’s goals and strategies are supported and delivered via the optimal design and processes.

Kinetic12 will ensure your organization has the optimal operating model, organizational design and work processes for today’s challenges and future growth.

Trade Spending & Customer Profitability Management

The challenge faced by manufacturers related to trade spending has been well documented. The industry has seen a proliferation of tools to help manufacturers better manage the investments they make with customers. Unfortunately, the Foodservice environment continues to evolve leading to new and different demands of manufacturers to spend with customers.

Kinetic12 helps manufacturers successfully navigate this challenging environment. We believe the key to effectively and efficiently managing trade spend starts with understanding you: Who are your customers? What are you trying to accomplish with them? What processes and tools do you have in place? How do you compare to the best in class and competition? How do you win in the marketplace? We seek to understand your business first and benchmark how you compare to other Foodservice manufacturers. We then work with your organization to develop and execute trade solutions that enable your business goals.

Kinetic12 partners have delivered bottom line results for clients by implementing solutions that have created better visibility to customer profitability, enhanced customer contracts, improved the efficiency of trade spend & customer pricing decision making, improved the effectiveness of trade promotion management (TPM) systems and upgraded organizational capability. Kinetic12 can help you transform your trade spending into a key lever to efficiently and effectively enable profitable sales and/or margin growth.