Database Reference
In-Depth Information
for an extensive range of market, brand, time, and measure selections, or
time aggregations.
he ad hoc reporting component allows marketing users to essentially
write their own marketing analyses programs. This permits them to look
at data and create their own brand or market aggregates.
he market planning module permits the marketing department to review
the marketing performance of any particular product. The data stored, and
capable of being analyzed here, include such things as package weight, cases,
the cost of the product, the company, price, and advertising budget. Mikey
understands the relationships among all these items. In the planning mode, if
marketing staff decide to alter one of these variables, e.g., package weight, the
system will automatically change the other relevant components in the mix.
Frito-Lay, another subsidiary of PepsiCo, makes corn chips, potato
chips, and tortilla chips. This is an extremely competitive market, with
much of the competition coming at the local and regional level. With
hundreds of product lines and a thousand stores, a mountain of data is
produced on a daily basis. In order to get a leg up on the competition,
Frito-Lay needed to be able to collect, digest, and then act on that mound
of information quickly.
Frito-Lay's solution was a combination of advanced technologies. This
includes scanner data combined with sales information from field staff, all
combined on a sophisticated network, encompassing handheld computers
and a private satellite communications network connecting the distribu-
tion sites, ultimately accessible through a decision-support system.
The idea of electronic data entry from the sales force dates back to the
late 1970s, but it wasn't until 1989 that Frito-Lay saw their vision become
reality. By then, the company had equipped more than 10,000 sales rep-
resentatives with handheld computers developed with Fujitsu at a cost of
more than $40 million.
These handheld computers, called bricks by Frito-Lay, are used to track
inventories at retail stores as well as to enter orders. The bricks are con-
nected to miniprinters in all delivery trucks. At day's end, all sales data
collected at stores that day are sent to the central data center at the com-
pany's headquarters by way of distributed computers at the various distri-
bution centers.
Frito-Lay built a total intelligence system that could be customized at
every level of the company. As the network developed, the company real-
ized it could shift from a national marketing strategy to one that targeted
local consumers. This is known as micromarketing .
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