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Why consumer goods Just-in-Time Marketers outperform their peers

A select group of consumer goods and services companies grows faster and more profitably compared to other players in the industry.

2 Copyright © 2016 Accenture. All rights reserved. Accenture, its logo, and High Performance Delivered are trademarks of Accenture.

Accenture research identifies them as Just-in-Time (JIT) Marketers, and they’re skilled at directing the right message or offer to the right consumer at the right time. They integrate digital and analytical capabilities firmly into their operating models while focusing strongly on profitable growth. It’s a strategy that pays off: on a global, cross-industry basis, JIT Marketers significantly outperform other groups in achieving growth that exceeds 26% over both one- and three-year periods. These trends play out in CG&S as well.

year year

26% 26%

Everyone else

JIT Everyone else

JIT

Cross Industry

yearyear

Consumer Goods & Services Industry

JIT Everyone else

26%

% reporting greater than 26% growth vs peers

Copyright © 2016 Accenture. All rights reserved. Accenture, its logo, and High Performance Delivered are trademarks of Accenture. 3

Industry challenges intensify

Accenture research shows that even when companies use the most effective marketing tactics, less than 20% of the consumers they reach find the messages relevant. In other words, many consumer good marketers have an inventory problem in that most of their brand-building efforts, campaigns and messaging lacks relevance when it comes to meeting real-time customer needs.

The resulting waste, inefficiency and poor quality call for the same kind of JIT solution that manufacturers use. Recognition of this problem is widespread within the industry: Only half of JIT marketers are

satisfied with their approach; and of all consumer goods chief marketing officers only 32% are very satisfied with the results they achieve.

What really sets JIT Marketers apart, though, beyond the focus on eliminating waste in all of its forms, is their understanding that in the current environment, achieving sustainable profitable growth takes more than cost cutting—it requires robust operational capabilities, innovative new business models, strong leadership, digital maturity, well-positioned categories and brands, and exceptional customer knowledge.

The need to practice what JIT Marketers have mastered has never been more urgent among consumer goods players. Trends are largely driven by more demanding consumers who are causing products, offerings, services and marketing efforts to become obsolete at a quicker pace. Widespread digital connectivity has produced near-perfect market information, resulting in shorter product shelf lives and increased demand for better, cheaper and more convenient offerings, irrespective of provider.


Five keys to successful growthJIT Marketers in the consumer goods space focus on five elements that set them apart in terms of profitable growth.

They ensure they have the right processes, controls, talent, skills, and infrastructure to meet marketing objectives, and structure them to operate in centralized (global) or de-centralized (local) models as needed. Far more consumer goods JIT Marketers say they are very satisfied with their ability to insert the right message at the right time in promotions, as well as in mobile,

broadcast, web and social media channels, than the global average for consumer goods players.

One global fast-moving consumer goods company, for example, handles social media in a different way. The firm uses job sharing to staff its social media center. This way, different parts of the business are aware of each other and speak more frequently. The

company even requires employees to keep a portion of their current responsibilities. In that way, the insights get put into action as they occur by the people doing the work.

Value delivery1

JIT Marketers invest in the marketing infrastructure they need to communicate and execute their customer value propositions


They make marketing and digital innovation parts of the C-suite agenda, and concentrate on tailoring value propositions at the right price, the right time and in the right channels.

For example, a leading Beauty Manufacturer has put accelerated Digital adoption as a key imperative to transform the organization.

As such, the executive team has created country-specific teams led by a local CMO tasked with ensuring digital fluency and best practice sharing across the business unit functions.

Leadership2

E�ectiveness E�ciency

VisionStrategy

JIT Marketers exhibit strong leadership that balances efficiency with effectiveness and supports the company’s marketing strategy and vision


These consumer goods players work to achieve maturity in functional digital capabilities and ecosystems, focusing on the technologies required to make it happen

They also strive to apply fact-based measurement and accountability when assessing the performance of their marketing capabilities. While JIT Marketers haven’t overinvested in digital technology, many in the consumer goods category are projecting massive new spending over the next three years to improve or expand their IT infrastructure. This

investment significantly exceeds the global sample of JIT Marketers, and likely reflects both the technology’s readiness for use in the industry and the marketers’ own willingness to use it.

For instance, the coffee brand whose coffeemaker automatically enables the re-ordering of refills for consumers while at the same time aligning real-time demand with real-time supply.

Digital maturity3


JIT Marketers proactively proactively anticipate and plan for the rapid obsolescence of the products and services they offer to consumers, continuously cultivating the ability to innovate, develop, manage, and provide offerings effectively and competitively in the marketplace

Take one manufacturer of sports T-shirts, which evolved its offerings by focusing on the user experience. Now it includes a comprehensive combination of, among other things, an app and watches, enabling the firm to provide ‘living services’ to consumers. These are sophisticated,

contextually aware digital services designed to anticipate and respond to your needs. They react in real-time to changes in the environment and patterns of behavior, in ways that will transform how we live, work and play.

Categories and brands4


These players have both the customer and overall consumer data they need to plan and execute effective marketing strategies, and strive to obtain a high level of understanding of both groups

They realize that understanding and communicating with consumers effectively requires them to operate seamlessly in an increasingly real-time digital environment.

For example, one major consumer packaged goods company has for several years invested in a shared service center of excellence, ensuring that all geographies, markets and brands have access to the same high level of capabilities.

All of these are able to build on a shared consumer database of almost 500 million consumers, thus enabling a consistently high level of social and email campaigns.

Consumer as well as customer knowledge5


To achieve new levels of profitable growth, consumer goods companies need to understand their current performance across these five elements. The recommended approach involves a holistic assessment of the firm’s current standing and its progress in each area, instead of “over-indexing” on capabilities or operating models alone. For instance, JIT marketers don’t invest more in digital or analytical capabilities compared to other players. Instead, their marketing effectiveness results from the unique ways they use those resources.

In contrast to the average company, JIT marketers are far more likely to integrate digital and analytic capabilities into their operating models. Like JIT Marketers across all industries, Consumer Goods & Services JIT Marketers are twice as likely as their peers to report the highest level of integration.

On a cross-industry basis, significantly more JIT Marketers establish centers of excellence for digital marketing activities, and hire employees with specialized digital skills that align

with the requirements of targeted customer segments and product categories. They also make sure they embed these experts in their marketing campaigns and promotion teams. They take a similar approach to analytic capabilities: while not investing more than others do in the discipline, they make sure they have the analytics capabilities they need to inform their operating models.

Key success growth factors

1

2

34

5

Five keys to successful growthJIT Marketers in the consumer goods space focus on five elements

that set them apart in terms of profitable growth.

Value delivery

Leadership

Digital maturityCategories and brands

Consumer as well as customer knowledge


Conclusion

Focused on CMOs in the consumer goods and services industry, the research is a subset of Accenture’s 2016 global survey of 532 marketing executives, which covered a variety of other industries, including telecommunications, electronics and high-technology, banking, media and entertainment, retail and insurance, among others. The countries included in the sample were Brazil, Canada, China, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The survey identified a subset of firms that outperform others in how efficiently and effectively they spend each marketing dollar. Labeled Just-in-Time marketers, these companies excel when it comes to targeting customers at the right time, in the right place and with the right message.

All the information described is based on the Survey Results.

Methodology

Consumer goods companies face enormous challenges from an ongoing series of disruptions that is transforming the industry’s competitive space. As players position themselves for the growing wave of digitalization, CMOs need to determine how best to adopt the five JIT marketing skills and capabilities that generate profitable growth.


Copyright © 2016 Accenture All rights reserved.

Accenture, its logo, and High Performance Delivered are trademarks of Accenture. 16-3056

Authors

Anurag Thakor [email protected]

Jan Van der Linden [email protected]

Joshua Bellin [email protected]

About Accenture

Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries and all business functions—underpinned by the world’s largest delivery network—Accenture works at the intersection of business and technology to help clients improve their performance and create sustainable value for their stakeholders. With more than 375,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world works and lives. Visit us at www.accenture.com.

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