BANGALORE, INDIA: Accenture and SAP AG introduced an enhanced offering focused on aiding consumer products companies in their efforts to improve substantially the return on their trade promotion investments.

The offering combines Accenture's industry expertise and business process knowledge with the innovative SAP tade promotion management application, which Accenture helped to develop drawing on its proven systems integration capability.

AMR Research indicates that the average trade promotion budgets of consumer goods companies will be 18 percent of revenue in 2008. However, despite this significant investment a report by AMR research suggests that "trade promotions are largely unmanaged, and most companies are clueless on their effectiveness."

In fact, separate figures from the Trade Promotion Management Association suggest that 39 percent of promotions do not generate any incremental volume in sales. The offering from SAP and Accenture is designed to address this problem and help consumer products companies more precisely identify, plan, execute and evaluate their trade promotions. 

As part of the offering, Accenture will leverage SAP Trade Promotion Management, a component of the latest version of the SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) application.

The full integration with SAP solutions, including the back-office finance and supply chain systems, creates an enhanced offering that aids companies in developing seamless links between trade promotion management and the business functions, whose data supports effective decision making.

Gary Singer, global TPM lead, Accenture, said: "Many consumer goods companies are not as well equipped as they could be to tackle trade promotions effectively. The combination of Accenture's industry, business process experience and systems integration track record with SAP's world-class technology creates an offering that will help arm consumer products companies with intelligence about their promotions' performance, which is crucial to confirming that promotional spending is focused on the right products, in the right places, at the right time."

SAP Trade Promotion Management provides increased visibility into all related trade promotion processes as well as accurate accounting of trade and financial results to help consumer goods companies improve trade activities and boost sales volumes and profits.

With its business process and software functionality - including trade funds management, account planning, sales execution management, trade claims management, and measurement and analysis - SAP Trade Promotion Management addresses the entire trade promotion process to enable maximum results.

Accenture has combined its industry, functional and technical knowledge, its analytical capabilities and its experience in systems integration and SAP solutions to help consumer products companies increase the returns from their trade promotion spending. 

Emiel van Schaik, senior vice president and global leader, Consumer Products and Life Sciences, SAP AG, said: "SAP and Accenture have a long history of providing clients with offerings that combine the strength of SAP's solutions with Accenture's industry and business process experience. This partnership marks the arrival of a true end-to-end trade promotion management solution that provides consumer goods companies with the solutions, integration and services necessary to plan promotional activity, manage trade funds and execute at the retail level consistently and effectively."