Constellation Brands Case Study Reveals 5 Ways Flowfinity Can Optimize Retail Execution

Oct 24, 2014

Consumer Goods Technology When we work with consumer goods companies, we often hear the same questions. Are products on the shelf or out-of-stock? Were promotions executed as planned? How does retail execution at one store or chain compare to others?

Recently Flowfinity released a case study featuring Constellation Brands, a leading global producer and marketer of wine, beer and spirits. The case study discusses how Constellation Brands replaced paper-based surveys with a mobile solution for collecting critical data about sales accounts across the United States.

Constellation Brands had its own questions to answer, and its sales teams are now using Flowfinity apps on iPads to gather local and national data about display execution, brand representation, distribution, and more. Over the past year, Constellation Brands has extended its use of Flowfinity from 300,000 accounts to cover more than 500,000 accounts nationwide.

Flowfinity is a fully customizable platform that lets you optimize your business processes with mobile devices, which means it offers a lot of flexibility in how to build out a solution that's best for your business.

The Constellation Brands case study reveals 5 ways that Flowfinity helps drive sales and ensure that plans are executed at retail.

1. Standardizing retail survey processes across teams and territories

Constellation Brands replaced spreadsheets and paper with a centralized survey data collection system, which made it possible to standardize information gathering across the country. This type of standardization leads to higher quality data and a big-picture view of retail execution performance.

Software selection tip: Your mobile solution should be agile enough to let you easily modify and update apps without programming or IT, and instantly publish the changes to all of your users' mobile devices.

2. Creating local surveys for local results

Constellation Brands lets local teams create their own surveys specific to their needs. By delivering local control to your teams, you can let them specify which questions, brands and accounts are relevant them, and in turn create targeted strategies to boost local sales.

Software selection tip: An enterprise mobile app solution with role-based permissions lets you control which information and actions are available to each team, or individual team member.

3. Improving planning with new survey opportunities

Eliminating spreadsheet work and data entry frees up a lot of time for higher value activities. At Constellation Brands, making survey activities more efficient freed up time to conduct even more surveys. If you have more hours in a day, you can collect more information at retail that leads to better planning and informed decision-making.

Software selection tip: Choose a database-driven solution that is flexible and robust enough for integration with other back-end/reporting systems you have in place.

4. Holding brokers and merchandisers more accountable

A picture of the shelf is worth a thousand words. At Constellation Brands, real-time information has helped sales teams measure broker/merchandiser performance and discover new selling opportunities.

Software selection tip: GPS location capture, time stamps and photos provide solid evidence of what you want to measure.

5. Quickly addressing issues with real-time information

Retail conditions can change quickly. With real-time information being submitted from mobile devices throughout the day, it's possible to identify gaps or issues faster and improve sales performance.

Software selection tip: Support for customizable real-time alerts lets you keep management and stakeholders in the loop when issues arise.

Learn how to close the retail execution gap and drive sales with mobile apps.

Get the Free White Paper