ChannelIQ eyes CPG growth opportunity

Retail intelligence provider ChannelIQ helps brands cope with e-commerce complexity and it just bolstered its ability to do so with a key hire from the consumer packaged goods world.

ChannelIQ named Pat Burke to the roles of senior director to lead growth in the CPG and retail industry as well as develop partnerships and strategic alliances. Burke previously served as the director of member development with the Path to Purchase Institute where he led the organization’s Council on Digital Shopper Marketing and brand and retailer partnership efforts. ChannelIQ is a software as a service (SasS) provider of channel management solutions focused on areas such as pricing intelligence, compliance and where to buy functionality and works with more than 300 of the world’s leading brands.

“We are excited to have Pat Burke join the Channel IQ team. As a 20 year veteran in the consumer packaged goods space, Pat brings a level of expertise that we have not had at our organization,” said Andy Walker, ChannelIQ’s CEO. “Several of our product offerings are well-suited for the CPG market. We have an aggressive growth strategy in place for 2015 and 2016, and look forward to Pat’s contribution in the months ahead.”

Walker is also a relative newcomer to ChannelIQ, having joined the six year old company in January 2015.

According to Burke, Channel IQ (CIQ) is perfectly situated to help CPG companies chart their e-commerce journey with a collection of services that help brands better understand the e-commerce landscape and drive conversion.

"E-commerce represents the greatest opportunity for CPG brands to maintain and grow sales. It is a dynamic, fast-changing environment, which needs to be monitored to effectively and profitably grow business in the channel,” Burke said. “I am excited to leverage my experience to lead CIQ’s expansion into CPG. With responsibilities ranging from connecting directly with brands through creating meaningful partnerships, my job is to introduce CIQ and expand the industry’s knowledge of the work we are doing to help drive understanding and sales performance for the brands we represent."

Traditionally, that work involved leveraging technology to help brands understand how and where their products were being sold and ensuring products were being sold by authorized sellers at an appropriate price. That type of work remains essential and growing more important to for high velocity consumables and CPG companies who continue to expand sales online and deal with new challenges addressed by CIQ.

“The really exciting part centers around our ability to leverage the same technology and a partnership strategy that is now helping brands convert browsers to buyers via a ‘BUY NOW/BUY LOCAL’ solution,” Burke said. “Whether a shopper is on a brand, product or recipe page, engaging with a brand ad or social media efforts, we direct them to the appropriate seller of that item - online or at a local store. In the background, the ability to monitor the shopper activity from the point of interest through the sale provides brands a powerful mechanism to understand the impact of their efforts."