Sunny prospects in a Cloudy environment in Consumer Goods Industry

Consumer Packaged Goods industry has the unique advantage of staying close to its consumers. The industry has emerged resilient from the recession days and is gearing up as consumer spending goes up. With changing consumer tastes, there is a huge onus on the industry leaders to maintain the connect with the consumers to create products that find acceptance while at the same time making sure that this is done in the most efficient way in terms of costs and resources. Developments like Social networking, Global Supply chains and Increasing competition from private labels have had a major impact on the way CPG companies do business. These developments have put onus on Consumer Goods companies to stay relevant to markets; stay ahead on consumer connects in the changing demographics. Technology plays an important role here during the execution of the firm's business objectives in terms of the way customers are attracted and the way products are delivered and sold.

Interestingly, I just read a Frito lay social gaming with Zynga Farmville initiative which is bringing experience, elements of kitchen products, recipes, and ingredients. The whole concept of this game is a story that shows a crop being harvested and you go on to see the other end of the finished product and all of this virtually online. This just tells you on how cross collaborations of true Farm to Fork complemented with social networks and technology can give rise to new advertising trends. Apart from the known collaborations of Retail - CPG - Manufacturer - Distributor kind of life cycle, we believe Consumer Goods are going to evolve on un-imaginable cross industry collaborations like Chefs - Dieticians - Health Trainers - Consumers - Gaming Owners as inevitable next generation of innovations in the industry.

With a constant pace ahead with consumer phenomena in this industry, technology enablement to break the barriers of consumer analytics, cross collaboration agility for speed to market in sales force, cross industries are essential for such next-generation innovations. Consumer Goods industry has had a business model in which data has been exchanged and information availability is on common systems for order tracking.. Connecting the Frito lay example and the cloud technology together, a set of ideas comes to me on various work-loads that are possible like social gaming for new product introductions, short term trade promotions management for a Food and Beverage kind CG company viz Consumer connect product design, ideation in case of apparel and footwear, consultative selling with oral or personal care products. There are perspectives in the market about data security, regulation needs and hence a careful pick of work-loads to support business is essential. Overall, I believe Cloud complements to such next-generation preparedness of technology enablement to Consumer Goods in terms of elasticity, scale for analytics, agility through the quicker deployments of applications, infrastructure to support such next generational business collaborations and staying relevant to business and support growth.

About the Author

Shantha Maheshwari With an overall experience of 17 years in IT managing multiple roles in industry segments of Retail, Consumer Goods, Transportation, Shantha Maheshwari currently runs the Go to Market Strategy for Cloud Business Services in Retail, Consumer Goods, Transportation sector. Her Service portfolio includes Delivery Management, Customer Relationship Management, Program Management in Retail, Consumer Goods and also Experience in large outsourcing, advisor led solutions, new business Solutions in Retail, Consumer Goods, Government and Transportation sectors

Service Offerings

Client Themes

Service Offerings

Client Themes

Our Global Presence Global Site

Our Global Presence Global Site

Our Showcase Pages Locations

Sunny prospects in a Cloudy

environment in Consumer

Goods Industry

About the Author

Service Offerings

Industries

Digital

HOLMES

Innovation

Contact Us

About Wipro

Location

Leadership

Investors

News and Events

Blogs

Analyst Speak

Partner Ecosystem

Careers

Sustainability

Contact Wipro