Industries

CPG – Manufacturers

Manufacturers and suppliers of branded food & liquor products typically go to market via major retailers and distributors, each channel presenting its own set of challenges and opportunities, including:

• Retailers extensively using price-based promotional strategies to win market share
• Consumers trained to expect price reductions
• Manufacturers fighting amongst themselves (and against the retailers' private label brands) for a share of shelf and consumers dollars
• Working capital locked up in inventory with limited shelf life and based on inaccurate demand forecasts
• Stretched field teams thinly spread across a long-tail of stores and hospitality venues to call on

Podcast: AI and its application in the Food & Beverage sector 

These challenges and opportunities can often be tackled with a more sophisticated, science-based approach to optimise trade spend promotions, as well as inventory & working capital, and your in-field sales force structure and activities. Complexica’s solutions for CPG manufacturers include:

• Promotional Planning & Trade Spend Optimisation
• Intelligent Quoting & Order Management
• In-field Sales Enablement
• Predictive Demand Planning

CPG – Retail

The everyday reality of CPG retailing is that consumers are more informed, more value-oriented, they want a better omni-channel experience, and expect price reductions. Common challenges and opportunities of retailing include:

• Consumer churn from brick-and-mortar towards digital channels
• Competitive environment with significant margin pressure and use of price-based promotional strategies
• Excessive working capital tied up in inventory holdings due to inaccurate demand forecasts

Podcast: AI and its application in the Food & Beverage sector 

In such a fast-paced and highly competitive landscape, margin pressure and stock availability are a constant, which makes it critical to effectively manage price-promotion strategies and stay on top of supply chain processes. Complexica's solutions for CPG retailers include:

• Promotional Planning Optimisation
• Pricing Optimisation
• Predictive Demand Planning
• Inventory & Replenishment Optimisation

Ports & Logistics

The ports and logistics industry plays a crucial role in the global economy, and it has been continuously pressure-tested by global supply chain disruptions. Now more than ever the industry needs to keep pace with the ever-increasing customer demand for quick and reliable supply of goods. By leveraging technology, ports and logistics operators can overcome many of the challenges and achieve greater efficiency, sustainability, and overall operational excellence. Complexica’s solutions for the Ports and Logistics industry include:

• WaveSCM Logistics Enterprise – transport, rail, yard, warehouse and container park management
• WaveSCM Ports & Terminals – vessel management, yard management and customer portal for container, bulk and general cargo terminals
• WaveSCM Decision Cloud – AI optimisers for rail capacity, rail loading, yard decking, job scheduling, supply chain and email workflow

Complexica recently acquired Wave Systems, an Australian vendor with 20 years of experience in the terminal management space. To find out more about Wave Systems, please visit the Wave Systems website.

Construction & Industrial

Manufacturers and suppliers of building materials have varying sophistication levels when it comes to effective use of data and decision analytics to drive effective margin and volume growth. This is driven by the inherent market complexities, challenges and opportunities, including:

• Complexity in go to market channels, ranging from B2C retailers and B2B trade centres to wholesalers/distributor partnerships and direct distribution to the trade
• Large number of disparate customers, ranging from national chains to independent retailers/trade centres, to large B2B commercial accounts all the way down to a long tail of small trade businesses indirect distribution
• Large product/SKU range creating complexity for sales reps, as well as significant working capital requirements to maintain the long tail of SKUs across various inventory stocking points
• Shifting market dynamics due to changes in economic conditions and other macro factors, forcing industry players to become more targeted in resource allocation/utilisation to realise wallet share growth and retention

These challenges and opportunities can often be tackled with a more sophisticated, science-based approach to unlock opportunities in the long tail of customers and optimise resourcing, inventory & working capital decisions. Complexica's solutions for suppliers of building materials include:

• Intelligent Quoting & Order Management
• In-field Sales Enablement
• Dynamic Pricing
• Digital Enablement
• Predictive customer churn
• Predictive Demand Planning

Pharmaceuticals

The impact of good and poor decisions are magnified within pharmaceutical companies, as the resources involved come at a high cost and often time-critical, regardless of whether it's in sales, marketing or supply chain. Add to this an ever-increasing regulatory framework on market access, pricing, and collection and use of data, and the complexity and consequence of decisions increases even further. Common complexities, challenges and opportunities in pharmaceutical companies include:

• Making sense of incomplete and disparate consumption data, which is affected by regulatory restrictions on the use and distribution of prescription data
• Changing expectations from health care providers regarding channel of choice and frequency to consume educational & marketing content
• High cost of in-field sales teams
• High working capital and risks associated with consignment stock in hospital and medical clinics
• Extended lead times to manufacture and import supply

In this highly specialised industry, opportunities exist to improve sales, marketing and supply chain metrics – be it through more personalised conversations driving improved customer engagement, more accurate forecasts for contract manufacturing, or predictive replenishment to optimise working capital. Complexica’s solutions for pharmaceutical manufacturers include:

• In-field Sales Enablement
• Predictive Demand Planning
• Inventory & Replenishment Optimisation

Wholesale & Distribution

Wholesalers & distributors are tasked with bringing products to market, and their operations are typically characterised by a large product range, long tail of customers, and thin margins. As such, there is little room for error in making pricing and supply chains decisions when managing the inherent complexity of a wholesales/distribution operation. And no matter if you distributing auto parts, electronics, health products, appliances, consumer goods, building materials, food, or liquor, the everyday priority is the same: to optimise sales activities in a such way that leads to revenue and margin growth, as well as retention of customers and improvement in wallet shares and market share metrics. Common challenges and opportunities include:

• Constant margin pressure and lack of brand equity
• Broad SKU range across many different demand profiles, driving a complex Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) process
• Large inventory holdings that create working capital costs and risks
• Complex operations with little room for error in pricing and supply chains decisions
• Varied spreadsheet-centric inter-departmental workflows, ripe for systemisation and digitalisation
• Retaining customers while simultaneously increasing wallet share

Optimising inventory levels, maximising margin, and improving the yield on sales resources are some of the benefits that Complexica is able to deliver to wholesalers & distributors across a variety of industries. Complexica’s solutions for wholesalers & distributors include:

• Sales Enablement
• Intelligent Quoting & Order Management
• Dynamic Pricing
• Predictive customer churn
• Predictive Demand Planning
• Inventory & Replenishment Optimisation

Financial Services

In the highly competitive and regulated environment of financial services, it's not unusual for customers to swing between states of engagement, confusion, and dis-engagement. Given the high acquisition cost of new customers, it’s important for financial institutions to prevent churn, increase engagement, and improve share of wallet through the quality & timing of customer interactions. In this context, direct-to-consumer and intermediated financial services companies face a varied set of challenges and opportunities, including:

• Continuous competitor pressure driving customer churn
• Volatile customer engagement and satisfaction scores
• Broad product portfolios and challenges to increase wallet share
• Multiple marketing and service channels driving confusion and content saturation

In order to drive better returns from their customer interactions, financial institutions need to move from personalisation to targeted, well-timed, and contextual Next Best Conversations. Complexica's solutions for providers of the financial services include:

• In-field Sales Enablement
• Personalisation
• Predictive Customer Churn
• Dynamic Pricing

Consumer Goods

No matter if you are manufacturing consumables, appliances, or electronics, effective management of trade spend and price-promotion strategies are critical to building both market share and brand equity, as well as the category itself. But doing so in a way that ensures you have the right stock at the right stores and that promotional activities are effectively executed is a never-ending challenge for limited in-field resources. Optimising resource allocation across pricing and trade promotions, replenishment, and retail execution workflows require a data-driven, science-oriented approach to improve decision making and business outcomes. The consumer goods industry presents its own set of challenges and opportunities, including:

• Strong competitive environment with significant use of price-based promotional strategies to build market share and brand equity
• Consumers trained to expect price reductions and also gravitating to online retailers to chase competitive deals
• Working capital locked up in stock inventory holdings due to inaccurate demand forecasts
• Stretched field teams spread across a long-tail of stores to call on for activations, with the added complexity of different business models amongst the various retailers, affecting their ability to influence range and share-of-shelf

Complexica’s solutions for manufacturers of consumer goods include:

• Sales Enablement
• Trade Spend Optimisation
• Pricing Optimisation
• Predictive Demand Planning
• Inventory & Replenishment Optimisation