Simplot Australia is a wholly owned subsidiary of the J R Simplot Company, a privately held food and agribusiness corporation based in Boise, Idaho in the United States. The J.R Simplot company was founded by J.R (Jack) Simplot in the 1930’s and is now a multinational food and agri-business with annual sales of more than $US4. billion.

Simplot Australia was founded in 1995 when the J R Simplot Company acquired some of Australia’s favourite food brand businesses including Edgell, Chiko, Birds Eye, Harvest and Leggo’s. From that time the company has continued to develop through acquisition of businesses such as John West, Lean Cuisine, Papa Giuseppe and product innovation.  The Australian management team is committed to enhance the well being of consumers by delivering nutritious food products that represent quality, value and convenience.

The business drivers for Simplot to implement a retail execution system was the need to get “real-time” information from the field to make critical business decisions on their products and distribution in-store, and cater for future business expansion.

The opportunity cost

With  no electronic  retail execution system in place for the retail chains field team, Simplot was being left behind by its competitors. The addition of new brands and categories into the business added to the challenges of operating with a paper-based system.

“Using a paper-based system we didn’t have accurate information quickly enough at head office to make informed decisions. With a significant amount of time and money being spent on promotions,  we need up to the minute information from the store across our Shelf,  Freezer, and Chilled businesses to get the real story, and be able to plan with certainty and operate effectively”, said Nigel Drews, National Sales Manager – Retail Operations.

Simplot had experience with mobile sales force automation solutions in other divisions within their business so were aware of the capabilities that the technology they could deliver. With a strong focus on the project methodology and getting their business requirements right Simplot built a business case which was signed off by the board and then began investigating solutions, finally selecting Quofore.

“To find the right solution we had a detailed check-list including; a vendor partner with a mature product, experience in the FMCG industry, and a solid customer base. Quofore met our rigorous selection process and was the stand-out choice”, said Terry Vella, Sales Information Manager.

Following a successful implementation path

Simplot informed the field team early on that the solution was coming and did a phased roll-out with a pilot first and then a national roll out state-by-state. According to Simplot the implementation was successful because executive management was engaged from the very start of the project through to training.

“Our field team were informed very early on that this was coming so there were no surprises and they were well prepared for the change to their existing way of doing their job, this really helped with the high-level of acceptance we had from the field team as did the fact that the system is so user-friendly and tailor-made for FMCG companies”, said Drews.

In-store visibility enhances the business

The Simplot retail division, comprising of around 170 Sales Support Representatives and Managers, has now been using the Quofore Retail Execution solution for over 18 months and it is a business critical system they couldn’t function effectively without it.

“The speed and quality of the information we now have from the field is extremely powerful. Using Quofore at head office I can see if there are any promotional compliance issues or where our products currently are verses where they should be. Before we used to have to guess or do a 10 store survey each day and you would only get a feel for what it might be. So to actually know exactly where your products are on the shelf with how many facings and to be alerted to any store specific issues immediately is the definition of success”, said Drews.

According to Drews Simplot has experienced a range of business benefits, “The Quofore solution has helped us to close the distribution compliance gap, which actually equates to millions more dollars in sales per year. The field team can capture real-time product data in-store so we’re armed with factual data to determine whether retailers are complying with agreed trading terms and we can work with them to improve distribution”.

“Our field team is also more engaged and confident as we communicate accurate information into their hands and they are feeding in-store intelligence back to us at head office. Paper usage is also down by about 80% or about several hundred thousand dollars. Previously when information was sent out if there was an error in a multiple page document you’d have to tear out the page with an error, re-print the page, mail it out and hope it would be put into the document. Now that problem simply doesn’t exist anymore”, said Drews.

Continuing to reap the rewards

As the Simplot business continues to expand with the addition of new categories to their product range, the greater efficiencies within the field team and the improved communication means Simplot hasn’t had to add equivalent headcount.

“We have achieved some savings in productivity with the Quofore solution and the additional capacity within our field team is re-allocated to more high-value tasks to fix issues we may be having in-store and to giving reps new category responsibilities”, said Drews.

The next stage for Simplot in their retail execution solution journey is to upgrade to the latest version of the Quofore solution which will aid continual business improvement.