Before engaging with Kuona, this client was operating in a challenging promotion environment with limited RGM resources resulting in non-standardization processes. Promotional activity came from numerous disparate sources like trade marketing, marketing, sales, RGM, and finance. They had no structured monitoring of promotional implementation, poor focus on smaller channels like modern trade, and limited visibility into promotional performance at a leadership level, all compounded by minimal business investment in promotional analytics. A primary external driver of their operations was the varied competitive landscape across their footprint. They sell across a big territory that have vastly different competitive intensities, requiring segmented promotion efforts based on the particular market dynamics of the geography.

Most significantly, their promotional spend was yielding negative returns, which makes that the efforts done won't return the expected business benefit.

Kuona was selected as the ideal solution partner primarily due to their experience in the traditional channel, which was the client's channel strategy and where they have the biggest market presence.

To resolve these problems, the client had several specific objectives for Kuona: a standardized process to create uniform promotional planning and execution processes across the firm with visibility for the higher management; end-to-end visibility to gain a single view of all promotional activity; diagnostic capability to break down and analyze promotional performance effectively; advanced analytics to bring in complex variables like cannibalization and overstock effects into promotional analysis; store segmentation to implement targeted strategies for more focused promotional deployment; and ROI improvement through optimizing promotions by category and region.

The solution was rolled out as planned, in a clearly defined set of steps to allow the integration with existing systems and processes.

The Kuona deployment yielded transformational results: the client achieved a 43 percentage point increase in promotional ROI, turning a negative return into a positive return while holding promotional spend flat. Profit and volume from promotional activity both saw significant increases, promotional planning and execution were made easier and more standardized, and management gained end-to-end visibility into promotional performance.

Through addressing the root causes of their promotion strategy and execution, Kuona assisted the client in making their promotional expenditures no longer a cost center but rather a source of growth, contributing directly to improved business performance.