Marketing Information Systems from a CPG Industry Perspective

Radha R would like to thank Rahul Mohandas for contributing this month’s column.

(CPG) organizations have typically invested in inward-looking information systems, such as supply chain and finance, and have shied away from market information systems. While the existing information systems deliver results to a large extent, there are limited additional benefits that these systems can offer, which leads organizations to consider new focus areas . One area is marketing information systems.

This month’s column discusses the information needs of the marketing function in a typical CPG organization and various marketing metrics and sources of the information of interest. It will also discuss the kinds of challenges in putting together the information in a holistic manner.

The consumer packaged goods CPG industry, as the name suggests, attempts to produce and market packaged goods such as personal care, home care, food, clothes and beverage items to be consumed by the general public.

While the functions in a CPG organization, such as production, supply chain and customer development, focus on getting these items to the point of purchase as quickly and efficiently as possible, the marketing function attempts to understand what the consumers are looking for as well as:

Develop products that have the features and benefits consumers are looking for,
Sell products at a price consumers are willing to pay,
Promote the product for consumers awareness and trial and
Make the product available at a location where consumers are be able to buy them conveniently.

The marketing function needs to work seamlessly with the other functions in the organization such as R&D, product development, supply chain (including procurement, manufacturing and logistics), customer development and finance to be able deliver on their promise to the consumer.

Marketing function can only be measured by its success in the marketplace, and the only metric that can measure success in the market is the organization’s share of the chosen market.

An Analysis Framework and Approach

Just tracking market share is not sufficient because it will not provide insights into why the market share is increasing/decreasing or whether the changes are in line with the rest of the market. An example framework for analysis is shown in Figure 2.

To enable the example in Figure 2, marketing would need to track various metrics from external sources and correlate them with information from internal financial and distribution systems. Possible external sources include: