Summary
We’ve expanded data sync for distributor management to include Accounts, Purchase Orders, and Promotions.
What’s New in SnoBase
What
In the “Customers” - meaning Ship To Customers, or more specifically anyone sending a brand Purchase Orders - module, SnoBase has added data sync capabilities for Accounts, Purchase Orders, and Promotions.
Brands can simply navigate to a connected Customer and choose what they want to view from the list.
Why
This builds upon previously released Inventory Health and Replenishment Schedule features to provide the user much needed context.
Our friends at Caliwater had called out to us the desire to quickly identify which Account is driving demand for a given purchase order. As we looked into that, we saw a few key details that a user would want to see immediately upon receiving an order, in addition to our existing Inventory Health status:
What Accounts pull from the DC?
What is the demand from those Accounts?
Are there any Promotions that a brand is running at these accounts?
While that data exists in different parts of SnoBase, bringing it all together here speeds things dramatically for our users.
How
As we continue to improve the behind the scenes semantic layer of SnoBase, many new capabilities are emerging.
While our Analytics module shows the power of ingesting 2nd party (like distributor portal data) and 3rd party data (like syndicated data) and displaying it intuitively, we have always been after bringing more context to that information with a brand’s 1st party data (product info, PO’s, promos, etc).
Getting this data to talk to each other has been a “fun” technical challenge, but we’re thrilled it is now bearing fruit in the form of a practical use case.
What’s coming next is even more exciting!
What We’re Thinking About
I wrote something on LinkedIn yesterday that I want to explore more deeply with brands in the coming days, which is the abandonment of the distributor channel altogether.
This isn’t an abandonment in the sense of “oh hey there is something better”, this is just an “I can’t make this revenue make sense, so I am going to focus elsewhere” abandonment.
You literally have natural products companies saying “I can’t make money working with natural foods distributors, I am just going to sell Walmart directly instead”.
Think of how broken that is.
I know from conversations I’ve had, and data that’s been shared with me in the development of our soon to be announced 👀 partnerships with distributors, that there is a ton of brand-building business out there through the distributor channel.
What I mean by brand building business is business that achieves the alpha of increased revenue + increased margin.
I also know that the “make it make sense” struggle was real in the early 2010’s when I started working with bigger distributors at Quinn, and from consulting work at Rodeo have seen the bottomline numbers just get worse over the past several years.
Look, my feeling is that this is not going to work if the necessary business that brands do with big distributors pulls the bandwidth of the entire team such that the brand-building business that exists out there cannot be discovered. You can’t have teams of people, for example, overseeing distributor purchase orders to make sure they aren’t a long-term liability masquerading as short-term revenue. There is a finite amount brands can spend to “manage” their revenue and margin is already compressed from selling costs.
Quitting is a natural reaction and perhaps a necessary one for some brands.
Our hope is that SnoBase can make that decision unnecessary by playing workflow facilitator, growing margin, while helping uncover that brand-building business, growing revenue.
If you feel your brand is overly burdened managing your distributor revenue, or if you think I’m totally off base, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Rainy Day Thought
Trade shows and genuine connection.
As evidenced above, I’ve been thinking a lot about the bottomline these days. Alongside the distributor channel, trade shows are oft mentioned as an expense burden and a top candidate to cut from the budget.
The nature of CPG though, if you are a startup and thus trying to grow a big business, is that you do not live near most of your customers.
Is genuine connection possible without these shows? Are people trying other things?
We’ve done great founder dinners and cocktail parties, but usually they are focused around “everyone is in town for X trade show”.
How You Can Connect
Upcoming Events
SFA Fancy Faire — Jan 11-13 — San Diego, CA
Email: [email protected]