The key to a successful Trade Promotion Management (TPM) implementation is more than just selecting a good implementation partner or choosing the correct vendor for your organization. Rather, the key to success actually starts with first building a strong internal team at your organization to lead the Trade Promotion Management implementation effort. The internal team sets a foundation for influencing positive change adoption at your organization, improving widespread organizational visibility to get the right parties involved at critical phases, and – everyone’s favorite – staying on track with your timeline. The question is, what composes a strong internal team?  

Internal Project Team: Trade Promotion Management Implementation

Below we outline four key stakeholder groups to consider when choosing your Trade Promotion Management implementation project team: 

1. Project Sponsor(s): The project sponsor is a key stakeholder in any Trade Promotion Management implementation team. This person needs to understand the “why” behind the project. Although not as regularly engaged in daily project activities, they need to be ready to take ownership of the project, its challenges, and its successes. In addition, their presence at events that touch the organization, trainings, project town halls, etc., are imperative to show that they are aligned with the project objective and support its progress. Department project sponsors can come from business units across the organization, such as IT, TPM, revenue growth management, finance, and sales and marketing.  
2. IT Team: Whether it’s a group of in-house developers or a senior director, the IT team should be onboarded to the business aspect of the project in the early stages, not only when development is required. These individuals in implementation have a tendency to get a large workload and are often on multiple projects at a time. It would be beneficial for each IT Workstream lead to have a support person to help drive their tasks forward. In addition, there should always be an IT manager for a group of developers from the client side to help drive development forward as well. This is the group where you should select the standing IT Admin from for the project.
3. Business Team: The business team consists of key stakeholders in the project that are familiar with the planning and deductions processes. An effective business team member is someone who is either currently in this role or is someone who used to be in this position so they can relate to the end user. In addition, they should bring strong project management skills and have an influential voice within the organization. It’s key for the business team to consist of individuals who are people-centric and empathetic, as these stakeholders will be the regular voice of the project communicating with the rest of the organization. This is the group where you should select the standing Business Admin moving forward.
4. Regular Business Users: Often, these individuals are mistakenly only engaged during certain points of the project; however, it’s best to keep these individuals engaged throughout all phases of the project to make sure minimal gaps exist when it comes to user acceptance and testing. It’s a common mistake for many businesses to only engage the business users solely during requirement gathering and testing portions. Having regular business users readily engaged throughout the course of the project, instead, will help be a guiding light to closing gaps, identifying risks, and being aware of any change impacts earlier on in the project process. These are also the individuals who will interact with and use the system moving forward, so having their buy-in is critical for grassroots change management initiatives. This is typically the group that you will pool Super Users/Change Champions from.  

Is your organization about to embark on a large Trade Promotion Management implementation and wants to understand how to best proceed forward? Our team of trade promotion consulting experts at Clarkston can help with outlining your methodology strategy and approach to best meet your business goals.