In the TPM Talks webinar series, senior consultant Shatakshi Shekhar sits down with various consumer products sales and marketing subject matter experts to chat through some of the most pressing topics and challenges surrounding Trade Promotion Management in the industry today. The topic of this talk is customer product hierarchy changes. Explore the free webinar download here and read a quick overview below.

Customer and product hierarchies are the backbone master data critical to a successful TPM solution. These hierarchies touch almost every element of an organization – from volume forecasting and promotional planning to trade analysis and financial reporting. As such, it’s important to understand the implications of when that information is changed, as the hierarchies can dictate the level of detail at which you plan, analyze, and report your business.  

So, how do you develop a strong hierarchy from the beginning to set yourself up for future success, even with potential changes? 

Changing Product or Customer Hierarchies 

Hierarchies determine your organization’s ability to analyze information on what matters most in an efficient way. One of the biggest challenges to cross-functional work can be that each function uses different hierarchies to execute and measure their results, making it difficult to communicate with each other and causing information to get lost in translation as you try to move between hierarchies. When you create and change hierarches, you have to ensure that you’re working together cross-functionally as an organization to be able to effectively and efficiently communicate. If not, you risk major inconsistencies across your master data. 

In an ideal world there would only be one hierarchy that meets cross-functional needs. However, different parts of the business have different reporting needs, which makes that a bit trickier. With this in mind, organizations need to ensure they’re building primary and alternate hierarchies using the same master data to ensure consistency. 

In this webinar, I’m joined by senior consultant and TPM expert Ashlie Graham as we discuss common challenges for developing customer and product hierarchies and our recommended best practices for clients to ensure both short- and long-term success with their TPM solutions. 

Download the 5-Minute Customer Product Hierarchy Changes Video

To learn more about our Trade Promotion Consulting services, connect with us today. 

Be sure to check out our other TPM Talks: 

• Episode 1: The Importance of ​Incorporating TPM in ​Sales Forecasts and ​Demand Plans 
• Episode 2: Planning TPM with ​Indirect Customers
• Episode 3: Involvement of Shopper Marketing in TPM Planning
• Episode 4: Forecasting Sales Using Shipment vs. Consumption Volume
• Episode 5: Approaches to Reporting in ​TPM Systems 
• Episode 6: currently viewing
• Episode 7: Loading Historical Promotion Data into a New TPM System

Contributions from Ashlie Graham