Last week, I had a fight with a lovely lady. It was downtown Montreal. The dinner was beautiful, and I was tempted to just nod my head and agree. However, I was feeling a bit cantankerous (too much travel). So, I took on the group and pushed an unpopular view.
It started as a simple statement by Sylvie Leduc, Molson Coors at the end of the CAS Customer Advisory Board (CAB). The discussion started as a dialog. The topic was trade promotion management. The group was lamenting—over a beer—about the lack of industry definitions and standards. This gap drives project delays and failures. The industry is littered with failed TPM projects.
Let's face it. Customer relationship management (CRM) does not meet the consumer product industry's needs very well. There is a need for very industry-specific functionality for trade promotion management (TPM) that does not exist. The group felt that the lack of standards delayed projects, causing many teams to fail. She felt strongly that if the group at dinner—Campbell Soup, Coca-Cola, GSK, Nestle, RJR, and Sony—ganged together that they could change the industry. She felt that the group could develop best practices, drive industry adoption and reduce project failure.
I love Sylvie's spunk, leadership and drive. She has driven change in Molson's processes, resulting in a step change of 70% productivity in her front office processes. She is justifiably proud. The industry needs more people like Sylvie. However, I had to tell her that I think that while she is well intended, that I think that she was wrong.
So, why would I take on a client over beer? (Especially a sales leader of Molson over a Molson beer?) The reason was simple. I did not want a group of talented individuals to waste their time.
In my seven years as an analyst, I have become a bit jaded. I have watched many initiatives for the industry come and go. The names litter many presentations—ECR, EPC, CPFR, GDSN, GUSI, Price Synchronization, and New Ways of Working Together—but the standards groups struggle with adoption. Even some of the representatives that have worked the hardest on the standards committees struggle with driving adoption—even within their own company.
Let's face it. The industry is not good at developing and using standards. Or, providing the leadership to support the development of industry-specific software. This is a common complaint by software providers serving the consumer products software industry.
In TPM, the industry has put the cart before the horse. Whereas, software usually grows from and institutionalizes best practices; but, there are no best practices for TPM. Instead, the software is solution looking to build best practices. It is made worse by the fact that SAP, Oracle and CAS are taking the TPM market in three different directions. None of the software leaders are working with each other on industry standards and none have driven leadership to build an ecosystem to better serve the industry.
The industry groups are also not in sync. Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) is on the periphery. TPMA has just been reorganized, and Consumer Goods Technology (CGT) has a share group (the group is good at sharing, but is not driving new standards). None of the three groups are actively pushing for process standards.
I had to share with Sylvie, that while well intended that starting this initiative was a bit like pushing water up hill.
...a bridge too far in an industry that is not ready to change.
What do you think? Is Sylvie right? Could the group change the industry?
