The paper reviews the developments which have taken place in the retailer panel services in the late 80's and early 90's, with specific reference to the move from retail audits to scanning based services and the current trend towards census data. The dramatic growth of data volumes associated with these changes have brought into the industry the need for the latest in information technology and a new way of handling and analyzing the data. The paper discusses the trends towards harmonising data, structuring hierarchies and creating order. It draws a clear distinction between multi-dimensional databases and data warehouses and between data mining and data drilling, and explains in some detail the meanings behind the terms. Whereas much of the technical and theoretical aspects associated with the latest technology are kept to a minimum, there is a focus on the essence, meaning and implications to the end user. The current trends toward manufacturer specific data warehouses are challenged and it is argued that users who now re-focus on modelling and analytical techniques and data mining technologies will quickly benefit more than their competitors who continue to focus on ordering data in their own data warehouse environments.
This paper describes how standard Retail Audit data can be enhanced "Management Information". The dynamism seen in the F.M.C.G's in the Middle East markets over the past two years with the explosive launch of new brands has focused the emphasis of this paper onto measuring the relative progress of the launch of new brands and ultimately at an early stage predicting their final success in the market. The ideas expressed in this paper have by no means been fully validated and are given as a hypothesis for further testing. They are produced in response to the request of many internal decision makers who, anxious about the launch of their brands, are looking for ways of monitoring the validity of their marketing strategy without relying on wishful and unrealistic climbs in share. This paper proposes that for new brand launches one needs to monitor and focus on four Retail Audit variables. These are classified as "Total marketing response variables" as they are seen to reflect a measure of how both consumers and retailers react to the various marketing activities occurring at any point in time. One of the four key variables that the paper introduces is the concept of the "Stock Pressure Index." The paper concludes by summarising the conceptual model for using Retail Audit data to predict the success of a new brand.
The paper gives an overview of the relationships between two key pieces of retail audit information, sales share and distribution. It shows how, if used correctly, retail audit data can give management a means of focussing their resources to increase share by optimising distribution of their brands. In order to establish the correct framework, a brief description is firstly given of the relative values attached to sales share and distribution figures. A more thorough explanation is then given on the terminology used and the subtle differences between key variables under the heading of distribution. A pre-requisite for the use of the retail audit data, is confidence in the data itself. The paper therefore, highlights the main areas of concern frequently voiced by retail audit data users and how they can be best addressed. Some hints are given and examples are then shown of how optimising distribution can be anticipated to effect share increase and how the net percentage increase can be estimated in advance. Although the learnings for this paper have been derived from our experience across all the retail audit panels run by AMER, in the Middle East, Europe and the Far East, the examples used and thus the overall emphasis pertain specifically to the retail audits run in the Middle East and to a lesser extend North Africa.
This paper describes the experience of AMER in setting up and running retail audits in the region. This is confined to our experience because this is the first open discussion on the subject and we cannot, therefore, refer to the experience of our colleagues. The paper will show firstly the ways in which retail audits in the Middle East are different from those in western Europe. Major areas of difference in data collection are the records of purchases, the use of storage areas and the nationalities of shopkeepers. Major differences in the market structures are the rapid universe and structural changes, large personal export market, significant retail sales by wholesalers in souks, significant sales to other regions or countries by wholesalers, significant institutional sales of consumer packed products, grey imports and handling of new products. Certain measures taken by AMER have contributed to the amelioration of most problems. There still remains the problem of obtaining accurate purchases however, in the instances when the product list is far too long. Our only solution currently is to run parallel panels.