Frozen & Refrigerated Buyer staff
Through a special arrangement, presented here for discussion is a summary of a current article from Frozen & Refrigerated Buyer magazine.
Are too many meetings, too much paperwork and too much manual data entry driving you crazy?
You’re not alone.
Shopperations, a provider of shopper marketing event lifecycle management, recently surveyed more than 100 CPG marketers and others in the industry to zero in on common frustrations.
Olga Yurovski, founder of Shopperations and a veteran of CPG companies including Conagra Brands, has noted in the past that ROI of many promotions seems to be slipping and more proactive sharing of information and ideas between trading partners would be wise.
Here are six pain points identified from the study:
1. Too much administrative work. The majority of respondents say they spend too much time on administrative duties. Dissatisfaction of those in senior positions is more pronounced. More than 80 percent of associate and assistant managers said they spend at least 41 percent of their time on non-value-added activities.
2. Out-of-control silos. While unavoidable, more than half believed organizational silos are detrimental and out of control. Managers and senior managers, in particular, think this area is problematic.
3. Too many meetings. Almost three quarters said too much time is spent in meetings. Again, senior level professionals signaled their dissatisfaction.
4. Manual reporting wastes time. More than 80 percent of managers and senior managers say their reporting is too manual and time-consuming.
5. Tools have not evolved since 1990. The majority of tools that participants use the most are almost three decades old and manual in nature. This directly impacts on the time spent reporting as well as the level of administrative work. Data is unavailable in real time, and reports aren’t generated automatically. Only 14 percent use a customer relationship management tool or budget management software.
6. Post-event analytics suffer. Almost half of respondents say they don’t have tools that enable them to perform their jobs in the most effective manner. The lack of easily obtainable, complete data and analytics tools limits shopper marketers’ ability to conduct post-event analytics. The process is too time-consuming, expensive, manual and inconsistent.