CPG - Manufacturers
Manufacturers and suppliers of branded food & liquor products typically go to market via major retailers and distributors, each channel presenting its own set of challenges and opportunities, including:
- Retailers extensively using price-based promotional strategies to win market share
- Consumers trained to expect price reductions
- Manufacturers fighting amongst themselves (and against the retailers' private label brands) for a share of shelf and consumers dollars
- Working capital locked up in inventory with limited shelf life and based on inaccurate demand forecasts
- Stretched field teams thinly spread across a long-tail of stores and hospitality venues to call on
Podcast: AI and its application in the Food&Beverage sector
These challenges and opportunities can often be tackled with a more sophisticated, science-based approach to optimise trade spend promotions, as well as inventory & working capital, and your in-field sales force structure and activities.
Complexica’s solutions for CPG manufacturers include:
- Promotional Planning & Trade Spend Optimisation
- Intelligent Quoting & Order Management
- In-field Sales Enablement
- Predictive Demand Planning
Some of our CPG customers
CPG - Retail
The everyday reality of CPG retailing is that consumers are more informed, more value-oriented, they want a better omni-channel experience, and expect price reductions. Common challenges and opportunities of retailing include:
- Consumer churn from brick-and-mortar towards digital channels
- Competitive environment with significant margin pressure and use of price-based promotional strategies
- Excessive working capital tied up in inventory holdings due to inaccurate demand forecasts
Podcast: AI and its application in the Food&Beverage sector
In such a fast-paced and highly competitive landscape, margin pressure and stock availability are a constant, which makes it critical to effectively manage price-promotion strategies and stay on top of supply chain processes.
Complexica's solutions for CPG retailers include:
- Promotional Planning Optimisation
- Pricing Optimisation
- Predictive Demand Planning
- Inventory & Replenishment Optimisation
Some of our CPG - retail customers
Ports and Logistics
The ports and logistics industry plays a crucial role in the global economy, and it has been continuously pressure-tested as a result of the global pandemic. Now more than ever the industry needs to keep pace with the ever-increasing customer demand for quick and reliable supply of goods. By leveraging technology, ports and logistics operators can overcome many of the challenges and achieve greater efficiency, sustainability, and overall operational excellence.
- TMSPro (Terminal Management System)
- EPMS (Empty Park Management System)
- TruckSmart (Transport Management System)
- RailTrack (Rail Management system)
- Larry Yard Optimiser
- Smart Ports – Consulting services
Some of our Ports and Logistics customers
Complexica recently acquired Wave Systems, an Australian vendor with 20 years of experience in the terminal management space. To find out more about Wave Systems, please visit https://wavesystems.com.au/
Construction and Industrial Products
Manufacturers and suppliers of building materials have varying sophistication levels when it comes to effective use of data and decision analytics to drive effective margin and volume growth. This is driven by the inherent market complexities, challenges and opportunities, including:
- Complexity in go to market channels, ranging from B2C retailers and B2B trade centres to wholesalers/distributor partnerships and direct distribution to the trade
- Large number of disparate customers, ranging from national chains to independent retailers/trade centres, to large B2B commercial accounts all the way down to a long tail of small trade businesses indirect distribution
- Large product/SKU range creating complexity for sales reps, as well as significant working capital requirements to maintain the long tail of SKUs across various inventory stocking points
- Shifting market dynamics due to changes in economic conditions and other macro factors, forcing industry players to become more targeted in resource allocation/utilisation to realise wallet share growth and retention
These challenges and opportunities can often be tackled with a more sophisticated, science-based approach to unlock opportunities in the long tail of customers and optimise resourcing, inventory & working capital decisions.
Complexica's solutions for suppliers of building materials include:
- Intelligent Quoting & Order Management
- In-field Sales Enablement
- Dynamic Pricing
- Digital Enablement
- Predictive Customer Churn
- Predictive Demand Planning
Some of our industrial customers
Pharmaceuticals
The impact of good and poor decisions are magnified within pharmaceutical companies, as the resources involved come at a high cost and often time-critical, regardless of whether it's in sales, marketing or supply chain. Add to this an ever-increasing regulatory framework on market access, pricing, and collection and use of data, and the complexity and consequence of decisions increases even further. Common complexities, challenges and opportunities in pharmaceutical companies include:
- Making sense of incomplete and disparate consumption data, which is affected by regulatory restrictions on the use and distribution of prescription data
- Changing expectations from heath care providers regarding channel of choice and frequency to consume educational & marketing content
- High cost of in-field sales teams
- High working capital and risks associated with consignment stock in hospital and medical clinics
- Extended lead times to manufacture and import supply
In this highly specialised industry, opportunities exist to improve sales, marketing and supply chain metrics – be it through more personalised conversations driving improved customer engagement, more accurate forecasts for contract manufacturing, or predictive replenishment to optimise working capital.
Complexica’s solutions for pharmaceutical manufacturers include:
Some of our pharma customers
Wholesale & Distribution
Wholesalers & distributors are tasked with bringing products to market, and their operations are typically characterised by a large product range, long tail of customers, and thin margins. As such, there is little room for error in making pricing and supply chains decisions when managing the inherent complexity of a wholesales/distribution operation. And no matter if you distributing auto parts, electronics, health products, appliances, consumer goods, building materials, food, or liquor, the everyday priority is the same: to optimise sales activities in a such way that leads to revenue and margin growth, as well as retention of customers and improvement in wallet shares and market share metrics. Common challenges and opportunities include:
- Constant margin pressure and lack of brand equity
- Broad SKU range across many different demand profiles, driving a complex Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) process
- Large inventory holdings that create working capital costs and risks
- Complex operations with little room for error in pricing and supply chains decisions
- Varied spreadsheet-centric inter-departmental workflows, ripe for systemisation and digitalisation
- Retaining customers while simultaneously increasing wallet share
Optmising inventory levels, maximising margin, and improving the yield on sales resources are some of the benefits that Complexica is able to deliver to wholesalers & distributors across a variety of industries.
Complexica’s solutions for wholesalers & distributors include:
- Sales Enablement
- Intelligent Quoting & Order Management
- Automated CRM
- Dynamic Pricing
- Predictive Customer Churn
- Predictive Demand Planning
- Inventory & Replenishment Optimisation
Some of our wholesale and distribution customers
Financial Services
In the highly competitive and regulated environment of financial services, it's not unusual for customers to swing between states of engagement, confusion, and dis-engagement. Given the high acquisition cost of new customers, it’s important for financial institutions to prevent churn, increase engagement, and improve share of wallet through the quality & timing of customer interactions. In this context, direct-to-consumer and intermediated financial services companies face a varied set of challenges and opportunities, including:
- Continuous competitor pressure driving customer churn
- Volatile customer engagement and satisfaction scores
- Broad product portfolios and challenges to increase wallet share
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Multiple marketing and service channels driving confusion and content saturation
In order to drive better returns from their customer interactions, financial institutions need move from personalisation to targeted, well-timed, and contextual Next Best Conversations.
Complexica's solutions for providers of the financial services include:
- In-field Sales Enablement
- Marketing Mix & Media Spend Optimisation
- Personalisation
- Predictive Customer Churn
- Dynamic Pricing
Some of our customers in financial services
Consumer Goods
No matter if you are manufacturing consumables, appliances, or electronics, effective management of trade spend and price-promotion strategies are critical to building both market share and brand equity, as well as the category itself. But doing so in a way that ensures you have the right stock at the right stores and that promotional activities are effectively executed is a never-ending challenge for limited in-field resources. Optimising resource allocation across pricing and trade promotions, replenishment, and retail execution workflows require a data-driven, science-oriented approach to improve decision making and business outcomes. The consumer goods industry presents its own set of challenges and opportunities, including:
- Strong competitive environment with significant use of price-based promotional strategies to build market share and brand equity
- Consumers trained to expect price reductions and also gravitating to online retailers to chase competitive deals
- Working capital locked up in stock inventory holdings due to inaccurate demand forecasts
- Stretched field teams spread across a long-tail of stores to call on for activations, with the added complexity of different business models amongst the various retailers, affecting their ability to influence range and share-of-shelf
Complexica’s solutions for manufacturers of consumer goods include:
- Sales Enablement
- Trade Spend Optimisation
- Pricing Optimisation
- Marketing Mix & Media Spend Optimisation
- Predictive Demand Planning
- Inventory & Replenishment Optimisation
Some of our Consumer Goods customers
Contact
To schedule a demo or learn more about our software products, please contact us:
"Larry will be our digital expert that will enable our sales team and add that technological advantage that our competitors don't have."
Kerry Smith
CEO, PFD Foods
$1.6 billion in revenue 
"Lion is one of Australasia’s largest food and beverage companies, supplying various alcohol products to wholesalers and retailers, and running multiple and frequent trade promotions throughout the year. The creation of promotional plans is a complicated task that requires considerable expertise and effort, and is an area where improved decision-making has the potential to positively impact the sales growth of various Lion products and product categories. Given Complexica’s world-class prediction and optimisation capabilities, award-winning software applications, and significant customer base in the food and alcohol industry, we have selected Complexica as our vendor of choice for trade promotion optimisation."
Mark Powell
National Sales Director, Lion
"At Liquor Barons we have an entrepreneurial mindset and are proud of being proactive rather than reactive in our approach to delivering the best possible customer service, which includes our premier liquor loyalty program and consumer-driven marketing. Given Complexica’s expertise in the Liquor industry, and significant customer base on both the retail and supplier side, we chose Complexica's Promotional Campaign Manager for digitalizing our spreadsheet-based approach for promotion planning, range management, and supplier portal access, which in turn will lift the sophistication of our key marketing processes."
Richard Verney
Marketing Manager
Liquor Barons
"Dulux is a leading marketer and manufacturer of some of Australia’s most recognised paint brands. The Dulux Retail sales team manage a diverse portfolio of products and the execution of our sales and marketing activity within both large, medium and small format home improvement retail stores. We consistently challenge ourselves to innovate and grow and to create greater value for our customers and the end consumer. Given the rise and application of Artificial Intelligence in recent times, we have partnered with Complexica to help us identify the right insight at the right time to improve our focus, decision making, execution, and value creation."
Jay Bedford
National Retail Sales Manager
Dulux
"Following a successful proof-of-concept earlier this year, we have selected Complexica as our vendor of choice for standardizing and optimising our promotional planning activities. Complexica’s Promotional Campaign Manager will provide us with a cloud-based platform for automating and optimising promotional planning for more than 2,700 stores, leading to improved decision-making, promotional effectiveness, and financial outcomes for our retail stores."
Rod Pritchard
Interim CEO, Metcash - Australian Liquor Marketers
$3.4 billion in revenue 
"After evaluating a number of software applications and vendors available on the market, we have decided to partner with Complexica for sales force optimisation and automation. We have found Complexica’s applications to be best suited for our extensive SKU range and large set of customers, being capable of generating recommendations and insights without burdening our sales staff with endless data analysis and interpretation.
Aemel Nordin
Managing Director, Polyaire
"DuluxGroup is pleased to expand its relationship with Complexica, a valued strategic partner and supplier to our business. Complexica’s software will enable DuluxGroup to reduce the amount of time required to generate usable insights, increase our campaign automation capability, personalise our communications based on core metrics, and close the loop on sales results to optimise ongoing digital marketing activity."
James Jones
Group Head of CRM, DuluxGroup
"Instead of hiring hundreds of data scientists to churn through endless sets of data to provide PFD with customer-specific insights and personalised recommendations, Larry, the Digital Analyst® will serve up the answers we need, when we need them, on a fully automated basis without the time and manual processes typically associated with complex analytical tasks.”
Richard Cohen
CIO, PFD Foods
$1.6 billion in revenue 
"As a global innovator in the wine industry, Pernod Ricard Winemakers is always seeking ways to gain efficiencies and best practices across our operational sites. Given the rise of Artificial Intelligence and big data analytics in recent times, we have engaged Complexica to explore how we can achieve a best-in-class wine supply chain using their cloud-based software applications. The engagement is focused on Australia & New Zealand, with a view to expand globally."
Brett McKinnon
Global Operations Director, Pernod Ricard Winemakers
"70% - 80% of what we do is about promotional activity, promotional pricing -- essentially what we take to the marketplace. This is one of the most comprehensive, most complex, one of the most difficult aspect of our business to get right. With Complexica, we will be best in class - there will not be anybody in the market that can perform this task more effectively or more efficiently than we can."
Doug Misener
CEO, Liquor Marketing Group
1,400+ retail stores 
"The key thing that makes such a difference in working with Complexica is their focus on delivering the business benefits and outcomes of the project."
Doug Misener
CEO, Liquor Marketing Group
1,400+ retail stores
"Australia needs smart technology and people, and it has been a great experience for me to observe Complexica co-founders Zbigniew and Matt Michalewicz assemble great teams of people using their mathematical, logic, programming, and business skills to create world-beating products. They are leaders in taking our bright graduates and forging them into the businesses of the future."
Lewis Owens
Chairman of the Board, SA Water 
"Having known the team behind Complexica for some years ago now, I am struck by their ability to make the complex simple - to use data and all its possibilities for useful purpose. They bring real intelligence to AI and have an commercial approach to its application."
Andrew McEvoy
Managing Director, Fairfax Media - Digital 
"I have worked with the team at Complexica for a number of years and have found them professional, innovative and have appreciated their partnership approach to delivering solutions to complex problems."
Kelvin McGrath
CIO, Asciano 
“Working with Complexica to deliver Project Automate has been a true partnership from the initial stages of analysis of LMG’s existing processes and data handling, through scoping and development phase and onto delivery and process change adoption. The Complexica team have delivered considerable value at each stage and will continue to be a valued partner to LMG."
Gavin Saunders
CFO, Liquor Marketing Group
“Complexica’s Order Management System and Larry, the Digital Analyst will provide more than 300 Bunzl account managers with real-time analytics and insights, to empower decision making and enhanced support. This will create more time for our teams to enable them to see more customers each day and provide the Bunzl personalised experience.”
Kim Hetherington
CEO, Bunzl Australasia 
"The team behind Complexica develops software products that are at the cutting edge of science and technology, always focused on the opportunities to deliver a decisive competitive edge to business. It has always been a great experience collaborating with Matthew, Zbigniew and Co."
Mike Lomman
GM Demand Chain, Roy Hill Iron Ore 
"The innovations that the Complexica team are capable of continue to amaze me. They look at problems from the client side and use a unique approach to collaborating with and deeply understanding their customers challenges. This uniquely differentiates what they bring to market and how they deliver value to customers."
John Ansley
CIO, Toll Group 
"Rather than building out an internal analytics team to investigate and analyse countless data sets, we have partnered with Complexica to provide our sales reps with the answers they need, when they need them, on a fully automated basis. We are excited about the benefits that Larry, the Digital Analyst will deliver to our business.”
Peter Caughey
CEO, Coventry Group 
“Complexica’s Order Management System and Larry, the Digital Analyst will provide more than 300 Bunzl account managers with real-time analytics and insights, to empower decision making and enhanced support. This will create more time for our teams to enable them to see more customers each day and provide the Bunzl personalised experience.”
Kim Hetherington
CEO, Bunzl Australasia
"After an evaluation process and successful proof-of-concept in 2016, we have chosen to partner with Complexica to upgrade the technological capability of our in-field sales force. The next-generation Customer Opportunity Profiler provided by Complexica will serve as a key tool for sales staff to optimise their daily activities, personalise conversations and interactions with customers, and analyse data to generate actionable insights."
Stephen Mooney
Group Sales Capability Manager, DuluxGroup
$1.7 billion in revenue
"After evaluating a number of software systems available in the marketplace, we have ultimately selected Complexica as our vendor of choice for sales force automation and CRM. Given the large SKU range we carry and very long tail of customers we serve, Complexica’s applications are best suited to deal with this inherent complexity without burdening our staff with endless data entry."
Nick Carr
CEO, Haircaire Australia
Australia's largest distributor of haircare products
“Asahi Beverages is Australia’s largest brewer, supplying a leading portfolio to wholesalers and retailers, including some of Australia’s most iconic brands. Last year Asahi Beverages acquired Carlton & United Breweries, which is its Australian alcohol business division. To harness the strength of our expanded portfolio, we partner with our customers to run multiple and frequent trade promotions throughout the year, delivering long-term growth for both our business and theirs. Given the inherent complexity in optimising promotional plans and our continued focus on revenue and growth management, we have selected Complexica as our vendor of choice after a successful Proof-of-Concept of its world-class optimisation capabilities.”
Kellie Barnes
Group Chief Information Officer
Asahi Beverages
"Dulux is a leading marketer and manufacturer of some of Australia’s most recognised paint brands. The Dulux Retail sales team manage a diverse portfolio of products and the execution of our sales and marketing activity within both large, medium and small format home improvement retail stores. We consistently challenge ourselves to innovate and grow and to create greater value for our customers and the end consumer. Given the rise and application of Artificial Intelligence in recent times, we have partnered with Complexica to help us identify the right insight at the right time to improve our focus, decision making, execution, and value creation."
Jay Bedford
National Retail Sales Manager, DuluxGroup
"At Liquor Barons we have an entrepreneurial mindset and are proud of being proactive rather than reactive in our approach to delivering the best possible customer service, which includes our premier liquor loyalty program and consumer-driven marketing. Given Complexica’s expertise in the Liquor industry, and significant customer base on both the retail and supplier side, we chose Complexica's Promotional Campaign Manager for digitalizing our spreadsheet-based approach for promotion planning, range management, and supplier portal access, which in turn will lift the sophistication of our key marketing processes."
Richard Verney
Marketing Manager, Liquor Barons
