Using AI to Predict Future Winning Promotions

There’s a TPM revolution happening in leading CPG companies.

Visualfabriq has been widely recognised as the industry frontrunner when it comes to applied AI, and as a result our clients manage trade promotions in a totally revolutionary way.

Using a truly end-to-end TPM -TPO -TPE process, enhanced by leading AI models, 90% of the work is saved because there is no manual data preparation or cleansing. 80% of promotions and 90% of baselines are all automated, freeing up sales professionals to do what they do best.

The AI applied in several places in the platform provides them with instant, accurate insights into the promotions that will work for them today. Applied AI is used to predict future, winning promotions. The revolution is that, thanks to AI capabilities, instead of providing incremental lifts from time to time, trade promotions are now finally well-positioned to drive actual, sustainable company growth and achieve the company’s business case.

Why should CPG companies trust the machine?

AI has emerged as the dominant tech trend of our time, and this pre-eminence is set to continue. Funding for AI development has sky rocketed, and its use is permeating every new platform, solution, app and device. By the end of 2018, leading tech trend-watchers predict that AI will have even more of a stronghold in all forms of technology.

Across the world, AI is being applied more and more to solve business problems and improve commercial outcomes. Developments in AI and machine learning have led to prediction models that outperform human estimations by 20 to 30 percent in forecast accuracy and can directly compare scenarios.

Powered by solutions with applied AI and machine learning, leading CPG companies are reliably predicting scenarios and understanding the ROI for each individual promotion during its planning which can be precisely translated into better promotions and more dependable expectations.

Ditching the spreadsheets

Visualfabriq CEO and co-founder, Jaco Brussé is a vocal advocate of the importance of CPG companies embracing applied AI in order to become future-fit.

“It is simply not possible for a CPG company to be positioned as a leading player of even the very near future while still clinging to redundant technologies.”

“When it comes to AI, there’s still a lingering perception in the industry that it is some kind of ‘Terminator technology’ that is far off in the future. But that is simply not true. How you use your data and the quality of what you can get out of your data is going to determine your organisational growth and leadership position in the industry, and that’s why the companies that take up applied AI-driven solutions now are the ones which will be the future leaders.”

Visualfabriq’s AI experts recently attended the World Summit AI held in Amsterdam in early October. The two-day event, which featured the world’s leading AI specialists and creators, users and thinkers provided a sweeping view of the very latest ways that AI is being applied across the broad spectrum of human endeavour.

“It was fascinating to get new and current insights into how AI is being applied by others to particularly solve business challenges,” says Visualfabriq’s Head of AI, Christian de Heij. “What was clear to us is that we are completely unique in having AI applied in several places in our platform, not just trade promotion management but in demand forecasting as well.”

Interested to see how AI can help to optimize planning and revenue of your trade promotions? View our trade promotion management solutions or request a demo!