Steadily enjoying high performance for decades, consumer products companies have more recently been plagued with evolving customer demand, among other challenges. Dealing with issues such as the slow in population growth, consolidation of grocers, and disjointed preferences, “industry revenue grew just 2% per year from 2012-19, and while these companies sought growth, they made their earnings growth on cost reduction,” a recent McKinsey article cites.
In addition, they continue to face disruptions in supply chain while maintaining strong brand loyalty. To keep up with demand, they also face omnichannel integration issues, sustainability pressures, and rising costs.
How are these companies to maintain growth in the face of these challenges? How are they getting the support they need? Here, we take a look at how a powerful, robust platform—NetSuite—is the backbone that consumer product companies need to thrive and tackle everyday challenges that challenge the industry.
Evolving Customer Demand
Consumer product companies experience difficulty in predicting and adapting to rapid shifts in consumer preferences driven by trends, economic conditions, and technological advancements. They’re also under increasing pressure to offer personalized products and services, often leaving them guessing what customers need. NetSuite offers several key solutions that help navigate these challenges. Real-time data analytics by NetSuite leads to better decision-making based on facts and not guesses. Companies can gain immediate insight into customer behaviors, market trends, and product performance. Its advanced customer relationship management (CRM) solution allows for personalized engagement and offers a 360-degree view of the customer and their needs, allowing tailored offerings to target their customer bases. NetSuite’s demand forecasting tools allow companies to predict future customer needs based on historical data and trends, enhancing their ability to respond proactively and ensure they maintain the right balance of inventory. By leveraging these capabilities, consumer product companies can more effectively adapt to the ever-changing landscape and provide personalized experiences while staying ahead of market demands.
Supply Chain Disruptions
Consumer product companies are increasingly facing challenges in managing their supply chains due to a variety of global disruptions. These disruptions often lead to significant supply chain interruptions, resulting in stockouts, delayed shipments, and inventory imbalances. These can have a profound impact on companies, driving up operational costs that lead to customer dissatisfaction. Stockouts can cause companies to lose sales and damage their reputation, while delayed shipments disrupt customer expectations. Additionally, inventory imbalances can lead to overstocking and understocking, creating inefficiencies and unnecessary costs. In response to these challenges, NetSuite offers a comprehensive suite of solutions to enhance supply chain resilience. By providing end-to-end supply chain visibility, NetSuite enables companies to track shipments in real-time, offering insights that allow for more proactive decision-making. Its advanced inventory management features help companies improve forecasting accuracy, optimizing their reorder processes and ensuring they maintain optimal stock levels. Furthermore, NetSuite’s cloud-based platform facilitates seamless collaboration with suppliers, enabling better communication and coordination, thus improving response times to supply chain disruptions. Combined, these capabilities help consumer product companies not only navigate the complexities of modern supply chains but also enhance their operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Maintaining Strong Brand Loyalty
These companies also face the challenges of fierce competition and rapidly evolving customer expectations that make it increasingly difficult to maintain brand loyalty. In a crowded marketplace, these companies struggle to retain customers who have more options than ever before and are often quick to switch brands if their needs aren’t met. As consumer preferences shift, it becomes even more critical for businesses to offer consistent, authentic messaging that resonates with their target audience. Companies must not only differentiate themselves but also build trust and long-term relationships with their customers. NetSuite provides an essential solution to these challenges by offering omnichannel customer engagement tools that create seamless, personalized experiences across all touchpoints. These tools allow businesses to maintain meaningful connections with customers regardless of the platform they interact with. Additionally, NetSuite’s data-driven insights empower companies to better understand customer behaviors, enabling them to refine their product offerings and enhance customer service. By automating loyalty programs and executing targeted marketing campaigns, NetSuite helps companies foster repeat business and boost brand loyalty. These capabilities, combined with powerful automation, ensure that consumer product companies can stay ahead in an increasingly competitive and fast-changing environment.
Omnichannel Integration
Today’s consumer product companies struggle to provide a seamless shopping experience across multiple touchpoints, including in-store, online, and mobile. With the rapid evolution of consumer expectations and the proliferation of sales channels, these companies struggle to deliver consistent and frictionless experiences for their customers. Disjointed customer experiences—where a shopper’s journey may differ between channels—often lead to dissatisfaction, thus eroding brand loyalty and customer trust. Additionally, managing operations across diverse sales platforms can be complex, as businesses must coordinate everything from inventory management to customer service, often relying on disparate systems that don’t communicate with each other efficiently. This fragmentation leads to inefficiencies, mistakes, and missed opportunities. NetSuite addresses these challenges by offering a unified platform that integrates sales, marketing, and inventory management into a single, cohesive system. By synchronizing data across all touchpoints in real-time, NetSuite enables companies to ensure that customer interactions are seamless, whether the shopper is browsing online, shopping in-store, or using a mobile app. Furthermore, NetSuite’s flexibility allows companies to easily adapt to new sales platforms and emerging technologies, ensuring they remain agile and responsive to shifting consumer demands. With this comprehensive approach, businesses can streamline operations, enhance the customer experience, and drive greater efficiency and profitability.
Sustainability Goals and Demand
These companies are also confronted with the task of balancing sustainability goals with the demands of profitability, market competitiveness, and cost management. As consumers increasingly prioritize eco-friendly and ethically sourced products, these companies are under pressure to align their operations with sustainability objectives, such as reducing carbon footprints, minimizing waste, and sourcing raw materials sustainably. However, pursuing these goals often comes with higher costs and the need for new technologies to track and report sustainability metrics. This can create significant strain on profitability, especially in industries where cost control is paramount. Furthermore, companies struggle with the complexity of accurately tracking sustainability data and meeting reporting standards, often lacking efficient systems to consolidate environmental and social impact metrics alongside financial performance. To address these challenges, NetSuite offers a comprehensive suite of tools that enable consumer product companies to effectively manage their sustainability efforts. NetSuite’s CarbonSuite app provides robust tracking and reporting capabilities for sustainability metrics, such as carbon emissions and waste reduction, allowing businesses to monitor their environmental impact in real time. According to NetSuite, the app “helps manage ESG-related factors, such as emissions, carbon credits, carbon offsets, overall sustainability and ESG reporting.” Additionally, NetSuite streamlines procurement processes, making it easier for companies to source sustainable materials and collaborate with environmentally conscious suppliers. By integrating sustainability goals directly into financial and operational planning, NetSuite helps businesses ensure that their long-term growth strategies are aligned with their environmental and social responsibilities, while also optimizing costs and operational efficiency.
This integration empowers companies to meet both their sustainability targets and business objectives more effectively, creating a more resilient and future-ready organization.
Rising Costs
Inflation, labor shortages, and rising raw material costs has increasingly placed immense pressure on consumer product companies’ margins. The escalating costs of production and labor are forcing companies to grapple with maintaining profitability without compromising product quality, a delicate balance that becomes harder to achieve in this economic environment. As a result, many businesses are being squeezed between the need to pass on rising costs to consumers and the imperative to find innovative cost-saving measures to remain competitive. This has led to increased pressure to either raise prices or streamline operations, both of which come with their own risks and uncertainties.
NetSuite, an integrated cloud-based solution, helps companies navigate these challenges by providing robust cost management and profitability tracking tools. These tools enable businesses to optimize spending and make informed financial decisions. With real-time financial insights, companies can gain better control over costs and identify areas to improve efficiencies. NetSuite’s ability to integrate financial planning with operational processes allows consumer product companies to streamline their operations, improve forecasting accuracy, and ensure that every aspect of their business is aligned to drive profitability without sacrificing quality. By leveraging these capabilities, companies can stay agile in an increasingly challenging market, making data-driven decisions that support both short-term survival and long-term growth.
Consumer product companies today are navigating an increasingly complex landscape, from evolving customer demands and supply chain disruptions to rising costs and sustainability pressures. To remain competitive, these companies need a solution that integrates operational efficiency, real-time insights, and the ability to adapt to market shifts. NetSuite provides a powerful, scalable platform that addresses these challenges by offering tools for demand forecasting, supply chain management, omnichannel integration, and sustainability tracking. By leveraging NetSuite’s comprehensive capabilities, consumer product companies can not only overcome the hurdles of today but also position themselves for long-term growth, profitability, and resilience in a rapidly changing market.
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