ValuTrak

National Debt and Other Fun Children’s Stories

Answers Systems — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:28:07 GMT

I was reading a post on-line a few days ago about both the President and Congress agreeing that things are improving in our nation’s economy. Jobless numbers finally took a small decline and consumer confidence is up (even just a tiny bit) for the first time in many months. Funny though, ‘Things looking up’ when our national economy is facing what seems to be an insurmountable year-over-year budget deficit just does not seem to make sense. It is like saying, “Gee, my car is really driving much better these last few miles (unfortunately in 50 feet is a cliff ahead)”.

It is kind of like if you were a manufacturer setting up a trade promotion contract for a large chain account and you figured out how to double your volume on the contract. That would be great! If you got twice the increase in volume by selling your products for half the listed price, well, that would be bad. Knowing the impact of your contract management decisions is vital to success, not just with one of your customers, but also with your whole portfolio.

What Washington needs is a trade promotion solution. Our capital needs some way to make sure that the contracts that they make with one another, and with the American people make good financial sense. Then, the Senate, House of Representatives and our executive branch need a way to track whether those investments did what they were intended to do. I placed a call with my state senator. I am pretty sure he is going to call me back before I finish this blog.

Want to embrace the issue, consider the solution and really improve your organization’s trade promotion management? Contact us. Answers Systems' ContractPro and ValuTrak solutions are software and outsourced services designed for the unique and specific needs of the foodservice industry.

Technorati tags: trade promotion management, Washington, contract management, foodservice, ValuTrak, ContractPro

"Synergy" is a Math Term - Who Knew!

Answers Systems — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:29:16 GMT

by Greg Hilton

Throughout recent history the Foodservice and Trade Spend Management industry, as well as much of corporate America, has used really cool big words to describe trends and philosophies.

From the early eighties, we had Total Quality Management (TQM), a management theory for defect reduction and heightened quality standards. Sun Tzu (that is him on the right), an ancient Chinese military general penned, “The Art of war” and a whole industry of management theorist began translating the logic of modern war fare to management practice. Big words, big theories, big statue!

Synergy and other words I did not know.

For years, I have heard the word “Synergy used to describe when two parties come together, and find common principles and practices that, if partnered in the right way will aid both parties. So, you are sitting around the manufacturer or operator company boardroom table talking about a partnership with someone and you say, ”Let’s see if we can find the synergies between our two companies.” This means, can we work together and get a better result from our partnership than the results we could get alone?

Math, the final frontier!

1 + 1 = 3

While sometimes mathematically challenged, this one seems pretty straight forward. Can the combination of two parties working together yield a better return than the two companies could working apart? When it comes to providing a solution to our customers foodservice challenges (Deduction management, data acquisition, great contract approval processes, business intelligence, etc.) taking all of the parts that our customers need and building solutions that address each piece is what sets us apart from our competition. Basically, we take every piece of the manufacturer and operator’s need and deliver it in one solution. Or, 1+1+1+1+1 = Way more than 5!

Synergy and the Foodservice industry

We understood early on in the creation of the ContractPro® and ValuTrak® solutions, manufacturer and operator foodservice solutions, that the trade spend foodservice needs could only be fully met by a solution that sought to deliver all of the pieces together. For instance, a manufacturer could not look for a data acquisition partner, then seek out a software vendor, then figure out how to staff to verify claims, then implement a Business Intelligence solution, then look for a distributor/operator portal vendor, etc.

The combination of products and services that we offer to foodservice operators and manufacturers sum to offer a much greater value than the individual products and services that competitors in the market offer. At Answers, we believe it is our mission in life to deliver a single, cohesive and ready-to-use solution to the foodservice industry.
We deliver our value through great software and the most expert and educated people in the world driving great services. Thank you for helping to make Answers Systems The Premier Software and Services provider in the Foodservice Industry.
Want to embrace the issue, consider the solution and really improve your organization’s trade promotion management? Contact us. Answers Systems' ContractPro and ValuTrak solutions are software and outsourced services designed for the unique and specific needs of the foodservice industry.

It’s a New Year in the Foodservice Industry

Answers Systems — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 21:34:42 GMT

by Greg Hilton

Answers Systems has kicked off an incredibly exciting product development roadmap for 2010. We are focused on delivering focused improvements in our core products, ContractPro® and ValuTrak®. In the design of this year’s major product and service releases, our team focused on some key needs for our customers:

Data Visibility
We are launching our ContractPro 3-D and expanded 2-D reporting products into production this month! Whith this incredible new capability, our FoodService customers will be able to better manage trade spend sales, claims, deductions, and ultimately understand the profitability of your trading relationships.

Improved Software Usability
We pride ourselves on delivering the very best Contract Management and trade promotion Management solutions. The first half, 2010 product releases for ContractPro and ValuTrak will include great new productivity features and usability improvements.

Infrastructure Investment
As a client of Answers Systems, isn’t it cool that you do not have to worry about servers, software, data centers, redundant power, etc? We have you covered with additional investments in just about every category of infrastructure imaginable.

Account Management Closer to the Customer
At our 2009 user conference at the Hilton Clearwater Beach Hotel in Clearwater, Florida, we committed to organize our team with a more clear focus on listening to your needs and lending expert support. In 2009, we expanded our Account Management team and reorganized our group to place your Account Manager closer to you and give them greater autonomy for decision making. The result. . . more rapid improvements to our products and services and a quicker response to your needs.

Thank you for helping to make Answers Systems The Experts in the Foodservice industry.

Want to embrace the issue, consider the solution and really improve your organization’s trade promotion management? Contact us. Answers Systems' ContractPro and ValuTrak solutions are software and outsourced services designed for the unique and specific needs of the foodservice industry.

Ruling in Favor of Michael Foods, Sodexo

Answers Systems — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:45:24 GMT

by Stacy Jackson

If you haven't already heard, a federal appeals court reversed the ruling on the Feesers vs. Michael Foods and Sodexo case. You may remember last summer (here's a link to that post) a lower court found Michael Foods and Sodexo guilty of violating the Robinson-Patman Act. Last week, Friday, January 8, that ruling was reversed.

Below are some links to that latest news:

Appeals Court Reverses Foodservice Pricing Pricing Ruling, Food Management

Third Circuit Rules that Food Service Management Companies and Distributors are Not Competitors for Robinson-Patman Act Analysis, USLaw.com

Michael Foods wins pricing case appeal, Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal

Technorati tags: Feesers v. Michael Foods, Robinson-Patman Act, Sodexo

Answers Systems Vision. . . To be the Premier Software and Services provider in the Foodservice industry

Answers Systems — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 19:20:06 GMT

Posted by Greg Hilton

First off, I wanted to say thank you to each and everyone of our our incredible customers. Your continued support of Answers Systems' vision allows our team to serve you each and every day. Serving you, our customers, is the single most important endeavor that we seek to succeed at.

A great year!
In the past year, Answers Systems has worked tirelessly to structure our team and our product offering with a keen eye for your needs. We have formed a new Client Services team and charged our Account Managers to act as customer advocates, to listen to your needs for product enhancements and changes to our service. The voice of the customer is now clearer and, as a result, the needs of the customer are being turned into new features and product capabilities with much greater speed.

We have continued our commitment to electronic data exchange growth. What started as a core investment (E-Claim and electronic data trading with our industry partners), has now turned into a core competency; with more than 80% of all data trading activity happening via an electronic exchange.

Through investments in technology and gains in process improvements, we have produced the best average claim turnaround time in Answers' history. Moving claiming and operator sales data through our system faster results in a quicker response to your critical data questions. Faster turnaround time on data exchange helps improve your relationship with your key customers as well.

We continue to build relationships with premier trading partners in the industry. Our work with the FSE team is building the groundwork for a great contract trading relationship. Through this relationship, Answers' manufacturing clients will be able to enjoy an automated contract trading process that will enable seamless flow of ContractPro^® contracts into the FSE portal.

The year ahead!
In the new year, our organization is more focused than ever. We have aligned our teams to execute on a the most important needs of our Operator and Manufacturer customers. ContractPro and ValuTrak continue to broaden the gap with our competitors by offering the very highest quality software coupled with the industry best data acquisition and services solutions.

In the coming year, Answers' is committed to deliver key software improvements aimed at making your jobs even more efficient. By carefully listening to our user's needs, we have designed a product roadmap for 2010 that includes incredible gains in the usability of key features of both ContractPro and ValuTrak software solutions.

Great software requires incredible investments behind the scenes. At Answers Systems, we continue to invest wisely so that your user experience with ValuTrak and ContractPro are nothing short of awesome! In 2010, we will invest even more in our hardware, network and data center infrastructure to insure that the rapid growth of our customer base (and use of our products) will not slow software performance.

We are super excited about the launch of our new analytics platform (code named Project Athena). The work of our team, and you the customer, over the last year has lead to a beautifully designed product capable of zeroing in on the most ambitious analytics needs. Project Athena delivers a superior reporting and analytics tool and, coupled with our ValuTrak operator software offering, make Answers Systems the choice in software and services in the Foodservice industry.

After coming into my new role with an extensive software background, I love to hear how our customers are using our products. We believe that, because of our partnership with you in the design of every piece of software we release, we design the very best solution in the industry. Please feel free to drop me an email. I would love to hear from you about how you are using ContractPro and ValuTrak to solve your most critical business needs.

I look forward to communicating our status throughout 2010. In subsequent customer newsletters, I will be bringing you all up to speed on how we are doing with our 2010 commitments. As you can no doubt tell, we are really excited about the road ahead. Thank youfor working with us toward the same goals of improved Trade Performance solutions.

Thank you,
Greg Hilton

Technorati tags: ContractPro, ValuTrak, electronic claim data, contract management, Answers Systems, Greg Hilton

Where have all the recycling bins gone? Collaboration on Trade Promotion for Going Green

Answers Systems — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:06:41 GMT

Posted by Janet Zlokovich

As we wrap up the 2009 year, I want to leave you one thought as you have discussions with your supply chain partners on trade promotion . . . .

Collaboration on data exchange should be a key factor when you establish the core objectives for your trade program model. A requirement of the model must include the submission of electronic billback reporting to the manufacturer for claim settlement. It is simply the only way vendor partners will have the proper insight into their business so they can better meet the needs of their customers, distributors and operators.

Answers Systems Eclaim^SMhas been our technology solution in production since 2006. All our clients benefit from this service. The ongoing advancements to enhance Eclaim capabilities for managing data continue with each new release. This month we introduced another new feature for loading electronic claim data. We also have dedicated IT resources staffed to retrieve and monitor the file transmissions, standardize the data load, and apply automation for a seamless flow into our ContractPro® solution for claim settlement and Athena^SM reporting.

Some manufacturers who are leading the foodservice industry with this initiative have already implemented this framework to target their company’s objectives. Others are beginning to ask me more questions to better understand how they can incorporate this component into their trade program negotiations. There are already foodservice industry standards in place by GS1 US for the preferred method of reporting billback transactions so the model doesn’t need to be invented, just implemented. I have worked with several distributors who needed guidance or have questions on this document. Others are looking for an interim solution for this format that will be an acceptable alternative.

Overall, I am seeing more companies becoming trading partners rather than partners in business to eliminate paper and drive waste from the supply chain. There can be a tremendous savings for all when the supply chain is synchronized and embraces collaboration to reduce costs.

Technorati tags: GS1 US, contract collaboration, supply chain synchronization, contract collaboration, trade promotion management, claim settlement

Trade Promotion Management: What is Trade Spend?

Answers Systems — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:50:58 GMT

Posted by Tom Tipps

There’s been a lot of dialogue around the topic of trade-spend management in the Foodservice industry; but, in all honesty I’m not sure the industry has ever really agreed on the definition of “Trade” Spending.

From my perspective Foodservice trade spending involves incentives paid by manufacturers directly to their operator and distributor trading partners…to motivate those trading partners to purchase, sell or promote the manufacturers products/brands to the restaurant’s patrons. So, it’s trade-spend is definitely a B2B incentive offering.

Trade incentives paid to restaurant operators are intended to entice them to purchase and/or promote the manufacturer's products to their patrons. Examples might be monetary incentives paid via rebate coupons, in-store server promotions and any other monies paid by the manufacturer to the Foodservice operators.

Trade incentives are offered to distributors to motivate them to sell the manufacture's products to their local/street operators. These incentives could take the form of agency fees (earned income), trade show allowances and the various forms of local market promotions…all of which are focused on building the local “street” business.

These definitions are important because manufactures want visibility into the profitability of their contracted operator business and the local street business. And in order to develop this financial analysis, they must be able to sort their spending into these two categories (contracted and street).

For example, let’s say a Manufacturer’s sales rep has paid $25,000 to fund a distributor’s market share initiatives with local independent restaurants. Someone is going to ask that sales rep how the program worked; i.e., “what was our return on that investment you recommended?” Without knowing the incremental volume developed and the amount of money spent, there is no way to report the results.

In an environment where Foodservice trade spend cost are spiraling out of control, executive management will have a lot of questions as to the efficiency of those $millions we spend. Long term survival will depend on our ability to answer those questions.

Technorati tags: trade promotion management, trade spending, trade spend, foodservice

A Simile Is Like A Song

Answers Systems — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:50:55 GMT

Posted By Greg Hilton

Here is a simile for you . . . Buying a reporting solution and not considering the cleanliness, accuracy and timeliness of the data being analyzed, is like installing a beautiful water faucet in your kitchen and hooking the plumbing directly to your sewer line.

Good data is like a filet mignon!

I was on a phone call with a potential customer the other day. I love being involved in the sales process because you really get energized by offering answers to the problems that your potential customers are facing. It is a really neat experience when a potential customer has one of those “ah-ha” moments.

We were demonstrating our trade spend reporting and analytics tool, ContractPro^® with Athena^SM, and the question came up, “How do you set yourself apart from your competition as far as reporting? Isn’t ContractPro with Athena just a reporting tool? I think my answer was something like, “No it is not just a reporting tool and SteakUms^® are not just another fine cut of steak.”

Data is like a foundation!

I was a bit more political with the individual on the phone but it underscores one of the most misunderstood and often missed differences in trade promotion and trade spending solutions in the industry. Long before there were standard contract management software solutions like ContractPro and ValuTrak^®, Answers Systems was working on standardizing data collection. We understood that the foundation of reporting and information solutions must be built on rock solid data from distributors and operators.

Build a “trick” suite of software with cool analytics… and then lay it on top of inaccurate and delayed, unmapped generally ugly data… and you get a really pretty picture of the aforementioned sewage plant. In other words, do not make your solution selection based on the beauty of the analytics sales presentation. Consider the big three elements of data…

The big three is like the big 2 plus 1!

1. Most any solutions provider (most) can work with you to get your own manufacturer data into the solution software. If you are a manufacturer, you sell product into distribution, you have customers in a database, you have products in a database, etc. These are all pretty easy to get to (since they sit in your database), and they are all needed to make any trade spending solution work.

2. Contracts should come from somewhere. For Answers Systems customers, we store customer contracts in the industry leading ContractPro product. You track all of your deals, you interact and get deals approved, you analyze the performance of the contract. . . all the cool stuff software can provide.

3. Claiming data is pretty important in this mix. Actually, this is where lots of other solution providers miss the boat. Getting claim data from the distributors and operators, cleaning it, matching it to your sku, contract, customers, etc. helping to reconcile discrepancies is not just a “nice to have” in this equation, it is the lifeblood of the whole process.

Data is NOT like a cute little fluffy bunny!

Remember, if you are not getting your claim data coming into your trade spending solution within 5-7 days after the delivery date. . . If you are not matching every piece of unit-level data to a real operator. . . If you are not embracing electronic claiming data initiatives . . . do not try to lay a reporting or analytics solution on top your data. Unless you are a fan of balcony seating at the county waste disposal site.

E-claim vs. Paper, What Is All The Hype?

Answers Systems — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:34:52 GMT

Posted by Tracy McQuilkin

E-claims are claims that come in an electronic format to Answers Systems and can be loaded into our processing system behind the scenes. This is a completely paperless process that eliminates the need for printed claims and manual claim entry.

The benefits of the Eclaim^sm process are two-fold. Naturally, as members of the global business community, we have a certain responsibility to contribute to the preservation of our environment. By introducing and encouraging clients to use this greener, more accurate process, we reduce the amount of paper needed for the claims process. And when you’re processing more than 400,000 claims per year, this is a significant opportunity! Secondly, the Eclaim process eliminates human intervention when it comes to keying in line items. By eliminating manual entries, you eliminate the chance of erroneous entries. Also, when an Eclaim is processed in our system, typically every line will clear on the claims and the claim will move straight to the review and approval process. This bypasses multiple days of work within verification, which is required for a paper claim. E-claims are not only quicker to process through our system but the data captured is more accurate because it is loaded systematically from the original file. Normally, a verifier manually inputs all of the lines of data and then the claim is processed. If there is an issue with data on an Eclaim, the verifier is responsible for setting up the missing cross references from the Eclaim data. A bonus of Eclaim is that Eclaim data includes unit level detail which allows more detailed reporting.

So, in a nutshell, why are E-claims with Answers Systems better than paper claims? Less room for error, more information, quicker processing, and more accurate data. Priceless!!!

The Status Quo Safety Button

Answers Systems — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:52:03 GMT

Posted by Bud Hilton

I recently complimented one of our managers at Answers Systems for stepping out on the edge and challenging a client on changing some of the practices they were doing in favor of a proven “best practice” way of accomplishing a task within their contract management system. After covering relentless arguing points and hovering in the “no change-safe zone”, the client agreed to make certain concessions and change their position and practice. I can’t express strongly enough how rare this seemingly risky attitude is in today’s foodservice world. Many managers in the foodservice industry have an internal “Status Quo Safety Button.”

This safety position is fairly understandable because it is generally easier to make “no decision” than “a decision” . . . even on a widely proven best practice that has been successful for others. Most sales people want to deal with the buyer that makes the decision. The sales person usually needs to search and find the person in the organization who is saying NO! Let’s look at the difference in the two mentalities:

Remain Status Quo	Change Practice
I can dismiss this sales person	I need to understand this presentation
This may not work for our company	It has been proven successful with other companies
I can’t lose anything (maybe)	I might gain something
This won’t cost the company money (maybe)	This might save the company money
My boss will agree with “no change” (maybe	My boss will love the new process
I can retain ALL my current staff (Island Guard)	I could possibly reduce my personnel
Change might make me have to work harder	I might become more effective

So, again it is sometimes easier to say NO than to operate on the edge and take the challenge, even when success is predictable.

I told our account manager that they should be very proud; that they were out on the edge with their sales approach; challenging their client with proven facts and big ROI opportunities; and that they are helping to carve new paths of success in our company and our industry. Foremost, I let our account manager know that the real hero in this scenario will be their client . . . so help make them realize that their decision was right.

The reason that very few are willing to operate on the edge is that there is not much room out there!