Five Best-in-Class Distinctions in POI TPx Vendor Panorama 2020

Visualfabriq – POI TPx Vendor Panorama 2020.

This year, the Promotion Optimization Institute has evaluated and featured 21 vendors in its 2020 POI TPx Vendor Panorama report which has now been published. This independent analysis supports CPG leaders in making decisions about the enabling technologies that drive critical business transformation.

Just like last year, Visualfabriq has earned five POI ‘Best-in-Class’ distinctions:

• Financial Orientation and Simulation
• Analytics Visualization
• TPO Ergonomics
• Artificial Intelligence
• Revenue Growth Management – a new category in 2020

We sat down with Visualfabriq CEO, Jaco Brussé to discuss his response to yet another strong showing for the company.

The full report is available for download from the POI membership pages, or contact the POI Institute at: [email protected]. More information about the POI membership: https://poinstitute.com/membership-pricing/.

Read the interview (transcript)

Q. Visualfabriq won five best in class distinctions. What does that mean to you?

Jaco Brussé: “First of all, it’s a very strong recognition for my team of people because this is a result of working really hard together in delivering value for our clients. It also gives the opportunity to engage with our clients, but also with our prospects going forward to demonstrate that we are able to deliver value. Not only for today, but also from a long term perspective. And that’s a very, very strong recognition.”

Q. There’s a new distinction category, RGM. Visualfabriq is recommended as best in class. Why? And, why is it important to have a broader look than just TPx?

Jaco Brussé: “Why is it so important to have a broader look than only TPx? Because we strongly believe that with the technology of today that we bring into the equation with our clients, you will be able to digitalize the strategic revenue growth management, which is more than only the TPx, to enable your people in the organization, to really take control of the entire process.

It’s a more holistic approach that provides one version of the truth and one platform that connects us from an end-to-end perspective. That’s why we believe it’s so important to have that broader look than only the TPx side of this business. I think something the Promotion Optimization Institute has done remarkably well with since, I think the last 12 to 24 months, is to really start to think about what kind of capabilities are required for the industry to be fit for the future.

Being best in class in that new dimension is fantastic because that is, again, a recognition for the Visualfabriq team that we are working on the right things with the right people. Doing the right things right.”

Q. Being best-in-class in AI, what does that mean for the clients of Visualfabriq? What is their win?

Jaco Brussé: “With applied artificial intelligence that we deploy in our model, which is not a consultancy approach, it’s really embedded in our solution. The win for our clients is that we will train the models with all the data which flows into our platform. And, with the very easy way to manage applied artificial intelligence in our solution, our clients can own it themselves.

They can work through the attributes and really train the model over time so that the prediction coming out of the model will improve. They become more efficient and more effective with the outcome of our models. So, the win will be a better business case.”

Q. POI states once again: “The platform of Visualfabriq has the ability to handle significant amounts of data.” Why is that an important notion?

Jaco Brussé: “The ability to handle huge forms of data in any kind of velocity, variety and volume is really answering that very simple notion of being able to scale over time. Because one of the things that we know for certain is that there will be an explosion of more data sources in the future. And we have solved that. We have a platform that can easily scale any kind of data that will come into play, to help our clients to become better in terms of insights.

The actionable insights from a change management perspective are so important because when you are in meetings, you don’t want to leave meetings with unanswered questions. You want to leave meetings with decisions taken. And that’s what we facilitate with our platform and our solutions.

And, that’s where data plays a very important role, and the ability that we bring into that equation with our clients is to process data without any issue from a user perspective. In terms of performance, this is a very big win for our clients.”

Q. “Visualfabriq’s platform is a 100% SaaS solution, where new releases are available to all clients without extra implementation effort or costs.” Why is this a key insight in the POI report?

Jaco Brussé: “What we have learned since our start of our business is that agility is the name of the game. And, really to depart from legacy solutions, you need, as a leadership, to start to embrace new technology. This was not easy at the start of Visualfabriq because people were still into legacy solutions on premises.

But we strongly believed, already at that point in time, that cloud and SaaS would be the answer to deliver value for our clients, not only for today, but also for the future. So that’s why we believe that this insight is really supporting that very simple notion to become fit for the future. You need to work with SaaS solutions, if not, then you fall back in the old way of doing business and that’s not delivering value to your company.

SaaS in the cloud is the solution going forward, because that makes it extremely scalable. Also, from a maintenance point of view, you don’t have the future oncosts. It’s all part of your license cost, which means that with release management you’re always guaranteed to have the latest technology in your business without any oncost. So it’s fairly transparent and straightforward.

Q. “The Visualfabriq platform has extensive configuration possibilities.” What’s the win?

Jaco Brussé: “We strongly believe as a company and it’s our philosophy to unleash your excellence. We strongly believe that we should bring the craftsmanship into the hands of the people where it belongs. And, that’s in your business, because these people know more about the business than consultants.

So the best consultants that you have are the people in your own organization. With the technology that we have, we give our clients the opportunity to own that.”

Q. “Visualfabriq has grown from international to global provider.” What does this mean?

Jaco Brussé: We have been extremely pleased to have some great clients, because these clients really helped us to move into different regions in the world. We just added the Singapore office to our organization, which means that we are now a true global organization being able to support our clients in implementations and engagement across all the regions in the world.

We also help our clients to own the implementation themselves, which enables you to move even faster in terms of your development as an organization from a turnover perspective.

Q. Visualfabriq’s expertise and passion to deliver their clients the tools they missed themselves aids in its growth and client retention”. Is this a result of being ‘business people’ for ‘business people’?

Jaco Brussé: This is a very, very interesting question. We are really good in technology. We understand that extremely well, how to use it. But we are not a tech players per se. We are business people for business people. And, what I mean by this is that we have been there. We got the T-shirt. We know how it feels to be in front of clients or customers to negotiate terms for next year.

We also know how it feels to negotiate your promotional plan for next year. We know how it feels to be in monthly meetings with supply chain or demand management, or with senior management to negotiate our numbers, our forecast for next month, or even for next year.

We don’t sell software. We don’t. We have a great technology to help our clients to deliver against the business case based on what we as business people know is required to be successful.