The requirements for in-store executional excellence has been radically transformed in 2020. Along with the ongoing challenges of maintaining your brands’ product availability and rightful share of your selling space in-store, manufacturers are now facing the new reality in which their field teams have become not just an ambassador for your brands but a trusted extension of the retailer’s operations teams.
Your salesforce is being asked to deliver quicker and more accurate measurement and tracking of product availability on the shelf, while the time available in store to perform these audits has been significantly reduced. In many cases that we see with our clients, consumer goods companies are losing their brands share of shelf, promotions and displays in-store, and are struggling to react and take quick and decisive action. Therefore, companies are forced to find faster, safer and more accurate ways to gather data and insight from the field to deliver the best possible brand presence in-store, to maximize sales and returns on investment.
Image Recognition solutions that have always enabled faster decision making at the shelf, have seen renewed interest in 2020, and we expect to see this well into 2021. Users can reduce the time spent in-store by up to 80% versus the traditional manual counts with greater accuracy enabling step changes in salesforce productivity. Another benefit is the reduction of contact with the physical shelf, increasing the safety of field personnel, particularly with high levels of sensitivity around social distancing and contact.
Despite these benefits, there are some key factors that see many of our clients hesitant to invest in traditional Image Recognition solutions: