Given the unmapped rate of change in these unprecedented times, keeping up with the issues has become virtually impossible.
Think about it, as the resident company expert on the retail scene, suppose you were asked by the board for a quick update on UK trade issues* like price deflation versus rising costs, M&A expansion and consolidation, supply chain management and stock control, sourcing overseas and CSR, accounting, reporting & regulation, consumer and demographic trends, human resources issues, and tax issues, how would you fare?
These issues all have impacts on supplier-retailer productivity, but hopefully you might be forgiven for claiming that your main concern is keeping the company-customer relationship afloat, whilst pleading that your main concerns are attempting to deal with issues closer to the supplier-retailer interface like omnichannel/online/mobile/shopper-marketing, competitive activity. All at the same time as keeping up to date with latest financial statements, trade research, and anything about the customer that can help you cope with 20:20 hindsight…
In other words, the NAM role and its support packages have evolved to a point where fire-fighting and fixing are in danger of replacing the need for planning and implementing robust trade strategies.
However, for your own sake and that of the company, it is important that you find ways of capitalising on two key strengths of the NAM role – the ability to take a market-wide view, knowing and advising on every possible way of retailing your category – and to take a longer term view of ‘cause and effect’ in trade investment. This is because of the time it takes to show a reasonable return on investment in trade initiatives.
These skills need to be placed in the context of a realistic market environment, complete with trade issues, in order to optimise their impact on the trading relationship.
The two skills are intended to complement the customer’s efforts as they attempt to apply your experience of other channels to their in-depth but narrow knowledge of their retail model and their preoccupation with operating in a short term retail environment. In other words, a retailer cannot legally make a hands-on examination of how other retailers merchandise and sell the category, whilst time pressures prevent the buyer from looking beyond closing time.
Equally, the retailer has little time or inclination to assess trading issues, unless their impact directly affects sales productivity in the aisle, on that day. An expert NAM can be trusted to meet both needs, providing that important issues have been factored into the equation…
To optimise your value to the customer, you do not have to be an in-depth expert on all trade issues, but for long term credibility and safety, it is important that you take a stance on key issues and factor their impact into the on-going trading relationship with your business unit. This means developing the ability to quickly evaluate individual issues, using the following approach:
- What is this about?
- Where is it headed?
- How does it affect me?
- What to do about it?
- How to do it?
Analysing trade issues effectively, means plugging into a wide spread of trade sources, virtual and real, checking and evaluating informal blogs along with mainstream media, and developing the ability to cut through the noise, quickly, with no time to soften the impact.
Then comes the challenge of coping with the inevitable stress of facing up to reality, secure in the knowledge that if you do not or cannot face taking the necessary action, someone else will do it for you…
This analysis will help the NAM to assess and manage the impact of a given trade issue on an individual customer. It is the job of the NAC to aggregate the potential impact on the issues on the rest of the customer base, and allocate resources accordingly.
This approach to trade issues will certainly not make the role of NAM any easier, but it will definitely help the job-holders to optimise their potential value, while others await a return to normal…
*For a good summary, please see this free PwC paper
