TDLinx and Instill

Delivering First-of-its-kind Location Information Management and Intelligence Solution for the Food Service Industry
The integrated service helps foodservice manufacturers identify distribution opportunities by individual location, chain, channel and market; and improve sales targeting with white space and void matrix analysis. Manufacturers can now optimize their marketing investment, eliminate trade spend settlement inefficiencies, and simplify collaboration with their distributors and operators.

The Problem

Today, foodservice manufacturers have very little visibility beyond the distributor into where their products are sold. It is difficult for manufacturers to answer basic business questions such as:

• Who are our ultimate customers, which products are they buying, and how much?
• How can we find new sales opportunities?
• What channels or chains should we be targeting?
• Are our programs and spending achieving the intended results?

To grow sales with such limited visibility, manufacturers employ a variety of trade spend programs. However, settlement of such programs has only added more complexity. Trade Spend program dollars have risen to the point that today they are now second only to COGS on a manufacturer’s P&L. The original goals – to drive revenue and provide market visibility – have fallen woefully short.

The lack of accurate location master data further compounds the problem. Few manufacturers can say that they have a location-level customer master, much less an accurate one. The ability to classify and drill down into industry-standard channel segmentation and chain affiliation is even more out of reach.

The Business Impact

Manufacturer sales growth is certainly constrained by the lack of customer and performance visibility. Moreover the operational inefficiencies associated with erroneous settlement process data have an impact on the efficiency of field sales staff, who frequently spend over 50% of their call time resolving deductions and reconciling compliance-related issues. Lack of market visibility has a huge impact on the manufacturer’s ability to grow its business.

The Core Issue: A Lack of Structured, Meaningful Data

Enterprise software companies offer applications and databases to manage sales, product, contract, and account processes, but they do not address the business performance measurement need:

• Structured location-level and market data that enables meaningful sales intelligence for better sales management
• Common coding structures and hierarchical classifications for channels, chains and products
• Flexibility to add data from multiple systems, applications and users of distributors and operators, within and beyond the firewall

What frequently appears in enterprise CRM systems is duplicated, inaccurate product and location data that lacks meaningful classification and attribution, which greatly diminishes the value of business intelligence investments. For example, one large food manufacturer found that a single active location for a key customer was represented in their customer master data through:

• 12 customer IDs
• 3 billing addresses
• 9 ship-to addresses
• 3 chain numbers

As a result this manufacturer and most others could not correctly answer fundamental questions like Who? What? Where? at any level.

For more information, contact:

Jeff Dorr, Instill
jdorr@instill.com 850.609.8066
Marianne Frasco, Nielsen
Marianne.Frasco@nielsen.com 203-563-3055

The Power of Data: Setting a Foundation for Sales and Trade Spend Intelligence

Through Nielsen’s TDLinx, a location information management service that uniquely codes and consistently classifies and aligns every foodservice location, and Instill Trade Spend Intelligence solutions, a suite of data management services and on-demand sales analytics, manufacturers now receive more accurate and timely visibility into What is being sold to Who and Where.

Instill Trade Spend Intelligence solutions
Instill Trade Spend Intelligence solutions enable sales visibility through the collection, standardization and enrichment of distributor billback and operator rebate data. This enriched, accurate & timely Proof of Performance data enables revenue opportunities by:

• Optimizing sales performance & efficiency
• Improving program & customer P&L
• Accelerating day to day sales decision making

Furthermore, manufacturers can leverage this data foundation to drive greater process efficiencies by feeding enriched, accurate and timely data back into enterprise contract management applications to:

• Reduce overpayments
• Verify compliance
• Reconcile exceptions

TDLinx Location Information Management

TDLinx delivers the industry-accepted standard TDLinx Channel Database. Updated daily and delivered to clients weekly, twice monthly or monthly, the database encompasses over 1.4 million locations.

Business Type/Channel

• Retail (key channels)
  • Supermarket
  • Other Grocery
  • Drug
  • Mass Merchandiser
  • Wholesale Club
  • Convenience
• Eating & Drinking
  • Full Service Restaurant
  • Quick Service Restaurant
  • Bar/Nightclub
• Entertainment & Recreation
  • Caterer
  • Entertainment
  • Recreation
• Travel/Transportation
  • Lodging
  • Air
  • Ground
  • Water
• Military
• Institution & Office
• Healthcare

TDLinx Hierarchies & Market Configurations

TDLinx hierarchies allow data and activity to be rolled up vertically by banner name and ultimate parent. TDLinx market configurations facilitate analyses by any standard county-based market definition including media (DMA and MSA), and scanner (ACNielsen SCANTRACK) geography.

TDLinx Data Modules

Store/outlet level information is grouped into data modules. Modules can be licensed in any combination to create a customized database that meets your company’s specific information needs.

• Name & Address
• Owner
• Primary Supplier*
• Marketing Group
• Geocode
• Telephone Number
• ACV/Square Footage*
• Location Facts

*Retail only