Motivation
The Consumer Products industry is looking for closer alignment to the consumer demand. The irreversible shift to value with its pressure on price margins along with the need for innovation as the major growth driver are the dominating factors. To face these challenges while still staying competitive in fulfilling end-customer demand, CP manufacturers need detailed and timely insights into end-customer demand and store-level conditions.
One way to create this increased demand-visibility is the usage of Point-of-sale (POS) Data . POS Data are the actual sales data (quantity and price), enriched with POS related information e.g., trade promotions, shelf inventory and store size.
Manufacturers receive this kind of information in different ways e.g., syndicated data provider, retailer extranets or in the context of coopertions between the industry and the retail sector like for example Vendor Managed Inventory or Category Management programs. Depending on the method of data exchange the data itself are more or less granular and more or less timely.
But how to proceed with this data? How to integrate them successfully in retail related business decisions? This question is where my diploma thesis fits in.
My name is Ina Hertweck, diploma thesis student at SAP's Industry Business Unit for Consumer Products and Life Sciences, located in Walldorf, Germany. I'm a student of Information Engineering and Management at the University of Karlsruhe where I will graduate by end of this year.
The subject of my thesis is the "Usage of Point-of-Sale Data by Consumer Products Manufacturers". The purpose is to show the different possibilities for a Consumer Products manufacturer to analyze POS Data and how this integration will impact the performance of his Supply Chain and Marketing related business processes.
POS Data survey
As a part of my thesis I'm conducting an online survey among Consumer Products manufacturers to see how they use this data source, for which business processes, with which methods, and where the benefits are seen. The results shall give insights how manufacturers can improve their Supply Chain and Marketing processes by integrating and analyzing real-time data collected at the various Point-of-Sales.
To get a complete picture about how to integrate the data in the most successful way and the impact that this integration will generate, it would be very important, that as many CP companies as possible take part in the survey.
Therefore I kindly ask you to take part in the on-line survey. Are you working within the Consumer Products industry and are you working within the area of Supply Chain Management, Sales/Marketing or IT? Are you familiar with the usage of POS Data or in a position where POS Data could influence your decisions? Then you are the right person to fill in the survey! Do you know someone else being maybe interested in the survey? Please feel free to forward the upcoming link to the online survey.
The higher the response rate the better will be the influence on SAP's Standard Product Development direction. The anonymous results of the complete survey will be of course made available to you accordingly, so that you can learn how other companies apply POS Data and where the benefits are seen.
The effort to answer the questions in the on-line survey Usage of POS Data by a CP manufacturer will take approximately 15 minutes. The survey will end on October 31, 2006.
If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me via e-mail ina.hertweck@sap.com or phone +49 - 6227 - 74 67 79.
Thank you a lot for your support! Your insights will be a great contribution to my survey as well as to my thesis.
