Clarkston Consulting recently partnered with a client on a TPM vendor selection project. This client roasts and distributes coffee, tea, and related products within the United States. The organization serves grocery stores, convenience stores, office accounts, restaurants, and hotels, as well as offering their products online.

Today, the company has grown to become one of the largest family-owned and operated retail coffee brands in America. The client is on a growth journey that will be fueled by more effectively competing in their various sales channels with improved management and optimization of their trade spend. To achieve this, the client engaged Clarkston to evaluate the organization’s needs and perform a vendor selection for a trade promotion tool. In this effort Clarkston leveraged our proprietary TPM Vendor Selection Toolkit, an asset built by our Sales & Marketing Community, to manage the selection and negotiation of a right-size, right-fit TPM system.

Download the Full TPM Vendor Selection Case Study

The goal was to upgrade the company’s technology systems to not only fit the needs of today, but the needs of the national brand in the future. The primary objectives for the TPM vendor selection team included improving toolkits for sales teams, alleviating the burden of deal administration and file coordination for the organization as a whole, and driving improved management of spend and sustainable growth through optimization of the organization with a trade system upgrade while taking the guesswork out of the analytics for the company.

To achieve the results, the team leveraged a streamlined approach using Clarkston’s TPM toolkit, in-person demonstrations, and detailed documentation and analysis of the TPM market. The TPM vendor selection team also included a structured analysis of all RFPs across six key areas for the organization’s needs including: functional fit, technical fit, cost, implementation, vendor viability, and ‘other’. As a result of the project, the client was able to select a TPM vendor that would support current strategic and operational needs while also creating a foundation for the business’ future objectives.

Download the full TPM vendor selection case study here.

Contributions by Ken Accardi, Eric Gardner, and Kyle McDonald