After implementing a new trade promotion management software system in 2005, Dial Corporation struggled with issues like rising deduction balances and $100 million in misstated trade funds. They brought in consultants to identify the root causes, concluding that the software was improperly configured to Dial's business practices. Over several years, Dial conducted two phased redeployments, called Project Brooklyn and Project Phoenix, to overhaul systems, processes, and user training to better match the software to their needs. Their lessons emphasized involving users early and configuring tools to fit existing business activities and processes. Dial is on track to launch a vastly improved TPM system in mid-2010 after piloting with select customers.

1. CPG Matters (December 2008)
http://www.cpgmatters.com/TradeMarketing1208.html
Dial Puts TPM on Track After Rough Start
By James Tenser
After Dial Corporation was acquired by German CPG giant Henkel AG & Co. in
2004, one of the innovations that quickly followed was a state-of-the-art trade
promotion management (TPM) software system. Initial deployment in Oct. 2005
seemed “very successful,” said Bob Baker, director of trade promotion
management at Dial, based in Phoenix. “But we immediately saw deduction
balances rising.”
This was a telltale sign of deeper troubles with the application, he said. What
followed has been a multi-year journey, during which those challenges have
been successfully identified and addressed.
Dial is on track to deliver a vastly improved TPM system in mid 2010, preceded
by a pilot with 4-5 customers.
The journey to that end has many important lessons for CPG manufacturers.
Baker shared these lessons with attendees at the recent TPMA/VCF Annual
Conference in Scottsdale. He was joined at the podium by Trey Alexander, a
principal at consulting firm Booz & Co., which has advised Dial throughout the
study and re-deployment of the TPM application.
Dial, the Phoenix-based marketer of such home and personal care brands as
Purex, Renuzit, Right Guard, Combat, and Soft Scrub, went live with its sales
planning software module in October 2005. The user interfaces went live the
following January for about 150 individuals, including sales, broker, and sales
planning executives.
The early issue with deduction balances was troubling enough, said Baker, but
then, “things started to backlog.” By summer of 2006 the company had about
$100 million in trade funds misstated on the tool as available, when actually they
were not. “We put the brakes on then and set about figuring out what was
wrong.”
Consultants from Booz & Company were brought in to help with this process in
late 2006. Said Alexander, “We helped them slog through the detail. It was not
glamorous, but there were a lot of learnings.”
The team concluded from its study that the root causes were not about the TPM
software itself. “They were more about how the software was configured to match

2. the way Dial does business,” Alexander said. “We decided that a re-
implementation was needed.”
Business practices around trade promotion in the U.S. differ significantly from
those in Europe, he added. “It took a year of dialog to reconcile why we need
capabilities at a higher cost. They required dramatic differences in configuration.”
Alexander said that slow performance and poor accuracy of the TPM system was
“far and away” the worst issue identified. Users had little input into the design of
the system. That led to distrust among the user community.
He said the team boiled down the issues to the seven top concerns:
1) Account teams could not effectively manage their deals within
the TPM system
2) Data within the TPM system did not balance against the
financial systems
3) Teams couldn’t accurately enter all the details of
promotion plans
4) TPM processes were inefficient
5) There was no way to easily create many needed reports
6) System performance and response times were slow
7) Navigation through the user interface was clumsy and
not intuitive
Armed with these insights, the redeployment process was undertaken in two
phases. “We named the first phase Project Brooklyn because we were building a
bridge to stability,” said Baker. The basic changes ensured that account teams
were working from an accurate checkbook, and could speed the funding of
promotions. Better controls were established around trade spending, and
navigation was improved to make user tasks much simpler.
The initial changes were made rapidly, he said. They were online by December
of 2007 and brought $3.8 million in cost savings.
The second, more painstaking phase, dubbed Project Phoenix, began
immediately after Project Brooklyn. Here the focus has been on overhauling
three areas: Systems, to improve “TPM tool visibility”; Process, to support the
system now and in the future; and People, to ensure the right people were
assigned to the right jobs.

3. Alexander described this process as “a slog through the mud,” that began with
some 100 interviews across the company aimed at documenting missing issues
and pain points. This was fundamental to step for the detailed process mapping
that has followed.
“We found there were small differences between sales teams,” he said. “These
revealed opportunities to harmonize our processes, especially some of the
spreadsheet tools they were using.” Of more than 80 pain points they identified,
two thirds were due to the TPM tool not being configured to match the business,
Alexander said. This was attributed the users being left out of the initial
deployment process – a mistake that will not be repeated at Dial.
Said Baker, “We stuck with it. We now understand that the tool will work if we
design differently.”
He said Project Phoenix is on track to deliver a vastly improved TPM system in
mid 2010. Dial plans to launch a pilot with 4-5 customers prior to that. “That will
help define the tool prior to roll-out.”
Dial’s TPM deployment and re-deployment has not come cheaply. “This has
been t the largest investment for Henkel in nine years, outside of its acquisition of
National Starch,” Baker said.
Baker offered some advice to CPG companies who are exploring TPM systems:
“Don’t talk about the system. Talk about the activities first. Then determine what
tools are needed. The last step is how the tool would work.”