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Salesforce expands consumer packaged goods cloud!

12/17/2021

Salesforce added features to its Consumer Goods Cloud that enable consumer packaged goods manufacturers to track and analyze what they spend on "trade promotions" with the stores that carry their products. The features will be available in the first half of 2022.

New capabilities in Consumer Goods Cloud include Trade Promotion Analytics, which measures and predicts effectiveness of trade spending in conjunction with consumer marketing spending. Key Account and Promotion Planning enables consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies to manage business plans and budgets on the account level.

Promotional agreements between retailers and consumer packaged goods companies require store check-ins and confirmation that a retailer is holding up its end of the bargain. A "mobile offline retail execution" app enables CPG company field reps to complete store visit activities such as confirming shelf placements and other obligations written into promotional contracts even if they've lost a connection. It was a needed feature, because cell signals typically degrade in the back of many stores. The previous edition of the app required a pervasive connection.

The new features for Salesforce Consumer Goods Cloud came from intellectual property acquired from Accenture that was originally built on the Force.com platform. Large companies such as Budweiser beer parent company AB InBev and Unilever use Consumer Goods Cloud, as well as other CPG companies that have $100 million or more in annual sales.

In total, there are 12 Salesforce vertical-specific clouds. The Salesforce Consumer Goods Cloud was one of several vertical-industry-specific clouds launched before Salesforce acquired Vlocity last year, an acquisition that gave immediate rise to several new clouds for media, telecommunications, government and utilities.

Salesforce Trade Promotion Management gathers data from sales and marketing sources to track promotions and sales for consumer packaged goods companies that use the platform.

However, things are changing in consumer packaged goods as companies struggle to connect marketing data to sales and supply chains to quantify return on marketing investments. Complicating matters are large retailers such as Amazon, Walgreens and Walmart, which have set up their own advertising networks that combine website, mobile app and physical in-store promotions.

IdeaHelix is a Salesforce Certified Silver Partner and a vlocity partner with Certified Vlocity Technical Architects. Reach out to us for more details by following us on (Facebook) or send us a note fromideahelix.com or at info@ideahelix.com