Infosys, P&G co-develop brand sales platform

Bangalore, India – Infosys and Procter & Gamble (P&G) have co-developed TradeEdge, a new cloud-based, insights-driven sales platform, which provides visibility to global brands across the demand chain, from distributors to consumers. The new platform delivers insights that help brands accurately sense and fulfill consumer demand in emerging markets.



“Most CPG companies are expanding to emerging markets,” said Girish Ramachandra, VP and head, products and platforms, Consumer Goods Retail for Infosys, during a phone interview with Chain Store Age. “Emerging markets are different than the U.S. It’s micro-retailing, there are 9 million retail outlets in India and 20 million in China. It requires a massive distribution network, and in an environment that is not technologically sophisticated that is a tall order.”



TradeEdge helps brands collaborate with retailers in emerging markets, who often sell a limited assortment of goods at high frequency and restock their entire inventory every day or two.



“It helps you get the right product in the right place at the right price,” said Ramachandra.



Currently available to assist brands in doing business across 80 countries, TradeEdge also helps brands perform tasks such as:

• Enhance collaboration by allowing companies and distributors to exchange accurate and timely information related to sales, inventory, and products.

• Expand reach by onboarding distributors rapidly in weeks rather than months, via a cloud-based ERP system, while rolling out best practices across markets within hours.

• Reduce wastage and returns of temperature-sensitive products with an innovative solution that monitors the temperature and location of cooling units.

• Enable unserved retailers to order and pay for products in a cost effective manner using basic mobile phones.

• Reduce ordering costs by up to 80% with a suggested orders feature that provides recommendations based on historical data and forecasts.

• Minimize selling costs by helping the distributor sales force to prioritize store visits based on value, accelerate order acquisition and increase store coverage by up to 15%.

“Visibility into distributor demand is a key driver to accelerate growth in the emerging markets,” said Andy Walter, VP of global business services, Procter & Gamble. “P&G and Infosys co-created Distributor Connect, an end-to-end solution that helps us connect with our distributors and facilitates easy exchange of information. This has enabled us to gain significantly better visibility into our downstream supply chain, increase order fill rate and reduce non-productive inventory. We are glad to see Distributor Connect become a part of the new Infosys TradeEdge.”