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Our recent Australia & New Zealand Revenue Management event: ‘Realising you revenue management goals in 2021’ brought to light some of the key themes that consumer goods brands need to be aware of as they plan for 2021. Here’s our round up of the most interesting themes from the event:
Managing through the crisis with customers
If we’ve learnt one thing this year, it’s that consumer goods brands need to be agile in the current climate. As Covid-19 forced areas of Australia and New Zealand into lockdowns across 2020, the ability to manage cost, reallocate resource and take advantage of emerging channel opportunities was paramount in order to ride the wave. Many manufacturers saw this as an opportunity to collaborate with new customers and try out new strategies and approaches. On the flip side, collaboration with existing customers has been more important than ever, particularly with regards to range rationalisation and transparency on supply. Keeping a strong relationship with customers is key to winning here.
The importance of keeping up with trends
Looking ahead to a post-vaccine world, it’s key to prepare for further market disruptions. As we track the projection of the likes of Amazon, we can expect many new players in the market, as well as a post-Covid decline for consumer goods brands. What consumer goods companies must do is minimise the impact of these disruptions through a consistent focus on revenue management. Tactical revenue management practitioners must establish which of the learnings from 2020 are the outliers and which will be key in their strategy going forward – upweighting the focus on pack price architecture, for example, is just one of the levers that will become important whilst remaining agile.
Ensuring the right people, tools & processes
People, tools and process are the foundations of a successful revenue management function. When it comes to people, spend sufficient time embedding a mindset and creating the culture within the business. When developing practices within your business around pricing, promotions and mix, let the tools do the work where it makes sense, but don’t overcomplicate it – focus on ease of use for your team, as well as change management in order to guarantee successful adoption.