With unemployment rates at record lows and digitally-native companies making headlines, 2018 was quite a year in the consumer products industry. As we shift our perspective to the challenges and opportunities ahead for global growth in 2019, I wanted to take a minute to consider some of the most interesting insights from 2018 and recap some of my favorite posts from Clarkston’s experts this year.

Mergers and Acquisitions in Consumer Products

Global M&A deals had a strong start in the first half of 2018, with the U.S. tax reform and economic growth in Europe driving deals in the consumer products industry. The average transaction size is growing and many companies are leveraging Integration Management Offices (IMOs) to ensure deal success. Acquiring companies are also starting to look at the due diligence process differently, with companies starting to hire independent industry experts to help evaluate transactions. One of Clarkston Consulting’s strategy consultants, Sebastian Valencia, covers this topics in more detail in Critical Issues in M&A Deals.

Building Your Data + Analytics Expertise

Many companies made significant improvements in their understanding of how data, analytics, and machine learning can help them sell more products and run their business more efficiently. Data self-service is becoming more available at consumer products companies with the ubiquity of innovative tools. However, there is still a lot of work for companies to do to truly enrich the human decision-making experience. Data governance, change management and alignment, and accountability are all more important than ever. Hear more on these trends in analytics from our data scientist, Maggie Seeds, in Four Trends in Analytics.

Direct-to-Consumer Strategies

So many of our consumer products clients are facing severe competition from digitally-native companies in the direct-to-consumer channel. These extraordinary companies, many of which didn’t exist just a few years ago, are a major threat to traditional consumer products companies in almost every product segment. We solicited input from several of our consumer products experts to provide advice on direct-to-consumer strategies. Analytics plays a big role in DTC, as the rise of technology and smartphone usage has made it easier for companies to gather data about consumers and ultimately to act on that data. For consumer goods companies, gaining more detailed insight about consumers is a competitive necessity. Learn more about how your company can improve your direct-to-consumer sales by reading sales and marketing consultant Hudson Rowland’s perspective in the piece Improve Your Direct-to-Consumer Model.

You may also enjoy these popular posts from 2018:

• What Can Retailers Learn from Amazon 4-Star Stores?
• Creating an Effective SAP® S/4HANA Data Migration Strategy
• Real-Time S&OP in Consumer Products

You can find all of our 2018 posts on the consumer products industry here.

What to Expect from Clarkston Consulting in 2019

We want to post even more insights, case studies, and testimonials for our consumer products readers this year. Please contact us if there is a topic you would like to hear more about this year and stay connected by subscribing to our weekly insights below.