FM 2023 complete (1) - Flipbook - Page 6
Meet the Team:
Clear Box Retail
Clear Box Retail is a technology driven supplier of
retail execution solutions. The leadership team
have intriguing CVs and includes a mix a
backgrounds including Acosta Europe/ Reach and
Kraft Heinz.
(NM) There are a number of areas that we lead
on versus the competition.
1. We own our technology, which means we evolve
and adapt to our clients needs. Many UK agencies
are either buying a solution from a third party or
they have outdated technology.
Clear Box opened for business almost exactly
when we were just getting used to the a new word, 2. The technology is modular – meaning it never
Covid, so the successful emergence of the business goes out of date or lags behind. If a new
is an indicator of its sound principles.
component (e.g data base structure) is better
than before then we can easily swap it in
We thought it was about time we stopped by to
hear a bit more about the business by putting our 3. Our technology connects with any system and
questions to members of its founding and
this means you dont have change anything else.
leadership team. In this group interview FMBE
A good example of this is in the USA. He we are
put the questions to:
working with a large FMCG company, and we have
Mark Smith – Chief Executive Officer (MS),
Billions of $ of product sales in our systems, and
Nick Marr – Chief Technology Officer (NM),
over 1.7 million outlets on our live data base. We
Sarah Morris – Business Unit Director (SM), direct 26 different agencies on where to go and
Jonathon Monger – Insight Director (JM),
what to do, then measure everything on the
return. The scale of our experience means we
Simon Newton – Co-Founder & Director
have to have the best technology to deliver this.
(SN)
Here’s what they had to tell us:
Whyistechnologysuchanimportant
cornerstoneofClearBoxRetail?
Canyougiveanexampleofhowyour
retail intelligence is helping a client to
increasesales?
(SM) The retail intelligence model is designed to
(MS) Retail Execution instore for us is about four
make retail execution a key pillar for our clients
things, all under the umbrella of “”Retail
by bringing together cross functional teams. What
Intelligence””.
this means in practice is that we use our data and
1) where to go, 2) what to do when you get there, technology solutions to direct action to Supply
3) how will you change something, 4)how do you Chain teams, National Account teams and Field
measure impact
teams in order to make each stage of the retail
execution journey more efficient and effective.
Therefore, technology and specifically retail
analytics, can help all of those 4 points, but in very A clear example of this would be where we use
different ways. That is why its right that
highly precise data alerts to direct our Field
technology is at the core of retail execution
teams into store to fix availability issues and
teams. You still need great people, great training ensure the products are on shelf for consumers
and management to complete the picture and
to buy. When that product then goes on promotion
hence you need to be brilliant on these elements, our retail analytics solution, ClearView, is used by
so then technology becomes the differentiator.
Supply Chain teams and National Account teams to
understand which stores will not have enough
How does the proprietary tech create
stock to fill the gondola end on day one and allows
clear points of difference between Clear
BoxRetailandotheragenciesintheField them to talk to retailer Supply Chain teams to
push stock to store. During the life of the
Marketingsphere?
promotion we then track both sales performance
Mark Smith
4
Summer 2023
Nick Marr.
and stockholding to alert stores which have either a stock
issue which can be fixed by Head Office teams or a compliance
issue can be fixed by a Field team. Once the promotion is
finished ClearView then gives National Account Managers the
ability to review the promotions performance and use the
learning to improve the next promotions forecast and
execution.
All of the analytics are fully automated and can be self serve
but we also provide Insight Analysts who will build out bespoke
insights using ClearView, because we know that clients are
increasingly stretched and value the support to drive their
commercial relationships with retailers.
DoesClearBox’stheadditionalprovisionof
e-commerce solutions help sales directors to see a
360viewoftheirgroceryproductsales?How/Why?
(MS) Simply put, yes it does. Sales Directors could not see all
their channels performance in one place as no-one was
offering this service, we can do this. Its not easy and the
hardest is Amazon but we have cracked this. In addition, we
show all the channels to our clients; Grocery, High St,
Foodservice, Convenience, and Pharmacy.
Whatarethemostfrequentlyrequestede-commerce
solutionsthatClearBoxprovides?Why?
(NM) Amazon is the one that comes up time and time again.
The level of difficulty, specialist knowledge and volume of data
are difficult to navigate and the way Amazon operates is often a
challenge for ‘non experts’ to understand. We are able to use
our technology and expertise bring visibility and simplify
Amazon so that everyone in the organisation can understand
the data and is directed to action.
WhoisusingClearBoxfore-commerce?
(MS) We have some small clients and large clients using this
service, in the UK and the USA – due to confidentiality we are
unable to name them, but one we can is Edgewell Personal
Care.
HowmuchofClearBox’sdaytodayactivityusesa
fieldteam?Howisitprovided?Forwhom?
(JM) We have a range of clients including Edgewell, Storck,
Bacardi, Kraft Heinz. We prefer to talk about Retail Execution
rather than field sales as we believe that delivering a great
instore experience for consumers is the responsibility of many
functions. Our suite of analytics tools improve Retail Execution
by bringing together supply chain, national account teams and
field sales teams all working as one team to seamlessly deliver
excellence at the point of purchase. Clearly, field teams are an
important part of that process, and we are delighted to provide
this service for the majority of our clients.
Our field sales model is very different from what you typically
see in the market as we are using data first to understand
Sarah Morris