Bumpy road to customer

The topic of the conference held by Karrier és Stílus Tanácsadó Kft. on 22. April was the role of forecasting which is an important tool in competition. Melinda Katona from Karrier és Stílus, spoke about the indicators and systems required for achieving and maintaining a competitive market position. These include past sales, sales plans, market trends, knowledge of competitors and data about partners. Forecast systems allow companies to respond more rapidly and cost-effectively to changes. Éva Nevishostény, marketing director of Nielsen talked about sales figures from 2007 and trends expected in 2008. Consumers will become increasingly conscious, more receptive to promotions, and sensitive to a good price/value ratio. The role of alternative POP will also increase. According to Balázs Csík, sales director of L’Orèal, good forecasting is the fruit of co-operation between departments and is coherent with budgets and targets. They prepare marketing plans for a period of three years, but these are revised in the second half of each year, in four stages. Apart from logistics, controlling, marketing and trade marketing also participate in working out forecasts. New product introduction are planned at least six months in advance. János Mezei, sales director of Coop Start Zrt., revealed that the introduction of the Co-op Club card in 2006 has resulted in sales becoming more predictable. The regular customer programs has attracted nearly a hundred thousand participants. The average basket value of card holders was almost twice of other customers last year. An example of joint forecasting by manufacturer and retailer was presented by Mária Lestyán from Unilever and Edina Konecsni from Tesco. The first offer is sent by Unilever 13 weeks before the start of a promotional campaign. A preliminary forecast is prepared by Tesco by the 8th week and a final one is worked out by the 3rd week. A final order is placed two weeks before the promotion. Anikó Zsingor, head of trade marketing from Friesland talked about activities related to the introduction of Pöttyös Pont2, which resulted in selling five million units within four months.