Supplier Billback Recovery - Strategy, Tactic, or Both?

We recently were told by a manager at one of our new customers that he had been assigned to work on strategic projects for the company. We asked a couple of questions to determine which projects were considered strategic.

At the top of his list was a project to implement a system that accurately tracks and manages, as well as ‘recovers’, the maximum supplier marketing co-op dollars available from his company’s suppliers.

This is a highly visible project for our customer, and certainly seems to pass the test of being strategic.  Typically a strategic project is one that is intended to have long term objectives, and which when implemented becomes integrated into the company’s operation.

On the other hand, tactical projects tend to be the means to achieving the strategic objective - A way to enable the strategic goal. Strategies are generally thought of as “What to do” whereas tactics are more concerned with “How to do it”.

Remember our customer’s top strategic objective was to maximize the recovery of supplier billback monies.  The more dollars his company was able to recover, the more they were able to reduce their overall point-of sales (POS) expenses.  Using measured and managed POS, they were able to increase annual sales and grow market share.

Next, our customer was faced with developing the tactics to achieve these strategic goals — sometimes a daunting task.  Fortunately for our customer, POS marketing tools are now available that lower the costs and risks associated with making such a strategic decision. And fortunately for us he chose the tactics and the tools from OnTrak Software, to achieve and support the company’s strategic objective.  Theses OnTrak software tools were MenuTrak, for custom beverage menus, and SignTrak, for custom POS.

Who are we to argue the point our new customer made, “OnTrak is a strategic investment that will help us turn our Graphics Division from a cost center to a profit center.”

We'd be happy to show you how OnTrak can provide you with the competitive tools to grow your sales and control your Marketing at-Retail costs. Whether you consider us a strategic acquisition or tactical support, please let us help you to achieve your strategic goals.