Retail Merchandising Just Got Smarter: How Marketsupport is Combining Field Teams With Technology
Retail merchandising has always depended on what happens inside the store. A product can have excellent distribution, strong consumer demand and significant marketing behind it, but if it is sitting in the stockroom instead of on the shelf, incorrectly stocked or unavailable when a shopper is ready to buy, the opportunity can disappear in seconds.
That reality has not changed. Marketsupport still believes strongly in having trained people physically present in stores, stocking shelves, supporting replenishment and making sure products are where they are supposed to be.
What is changing is the technology behind those people.
Marketsupport has invested in a new enterprise resource planning system that allows us to connect more of the activities surrounding field merchandising, inventory, ordering and delivery. For our clients, the important part is not simply that we have implemented new technology. It is what that technology allows our field teams and operations teams to accomplish together.
Retail merchandising is becoming more connected, and that creates an opportunity to make every store visit more valuable.
The shelf is still where execution becomes real
Retail has become increasingly sophisticated. Manufacturers can analyze sales data, forecast demand, manage sophisticated supply chains and invest heavily in digital advertising. None of those capabilities eliminate the physical realities of a retail environment.
Someone still has to make sure the product reaches the shelf.
In-store shelf stocking merchandisers perform work that cannot simply be digitized. They can identify products that need to be replenished, stock shelves, support store-level execution and see conditions that may not be obvious from a centralized report.
The opportunity is not to replace those people with technology. It is to give them better technology and connect the information they gather in the field to the broader retail operation.
When field execution exists separately from ordering, inventory and program management, valuable information can become fragmented. A merchandiser may identify an issue in one system, an order may need to be handled through another process, and managers may depend on additional reporting to understand what happened.
Connecting those functions can create a very different operating environment.
Connecting field activity with what happens next
Consider something as basic as discovering that a product needs to be ordered.
Identifying the need is only the beginning. The value comes from what happens afterward. How quickly can that information move through the organization? Who needs to act on it? Does someone have to enter the information again? How does it reach the ordering system? Can the process ultimately support getting the required product back into the store?
Marketsupport’s expanded technology capabilities allow us to create more connected workflows around these activities.
One example is Direct Store Delivery, commonly known as DSD. Brands and manufacturers operating DSD programs often have their own products delivered directly to retail locations rather than moving entirely through a retailer’s centralized distribution network. Field sales representatives may visit those stores regularly, assess what is required and take orders.
Marketsupport can now support automated store ordering for DSD programs, allowing orders captured through the field process to move through our system and into the appropriate ordering workflow.
That connection matters because it reduces the number of disconnected steps between seeing what is happening in a store and doing something about it.
It also demonstrates something larger about the direction Marketsupport is taking. Field merchandising does not have to operate as an isolated activity. It can become part of a connected retail execution process.
Better technology can make people more effective
There is a tendency in almost every industry to frame technology as a replacement for people. Retail merchandising provides a good example of why that thinking can be too simplistic.
A software platform cannot physically take a product out of a back room and put it on a shelf. It cannot walk through a retail location and experience the environment in exactly the same way a trained field representative can. It cannot independently perform every physical task required to keep a merchandising program operating across hundreds or thousands of locations.
Technology can, however, make the people performing those tasks considerably more effective.
A connected system can help organize activity, manage information, support ordering processes, improve inventory management and give operations teams greater visibility into what is occurring across a program.
This is particularly important as programs grow.
Managing a handful of locations is very different from coordinating field activity across a large geography. Every additional store introduces another location, schedule, inventory environment and set of activities that need to be managed.
Without strong operational infrastructure, complexity grows quickly. Technology provides the structure required to make that complexity manageable.
Retail execution is bigger than a completed store visit
For years, retail merchandising programs have often been evaluated around activities. Was the store visited? Was the assigned work completed? Was the product stocked?
Those questions still matter, but clients increasingly need to understand what those activities mean within the broader operation.
If a field representative discovers that inventory is low, what happens next? If a product requires replenishment, how quickly can the appropriate process begin? If the same issue appears across multiple locations, can the organization identify the pattern? If a manufacturer needs inventory managed at customer locations, can the field program support that requirement?
This is where Marketsupport’s investment in operational technology becomes particularly important.
Our capabilities can extend beyond traditional store-level activity into areas such as ordering, inventory management and delivery support. That allows us to think about field programs more holistically.
Instead of asking only, “What task should our merchandiser complete today?” we can also ask, “What business process does this field activity support?”
That is a much more powerful question.
The opportunity extends beyond traditional retail
The same infrastructure that supports retail execution can have applications outside a conventional store.
Consider a manufacturer supplying products to hospitals. Those products might include everyday healthcare items and supplies that need to remain available at multiple locations. Inventory may be stored on-site, products need to be delivered and replenished, and someone needs to manage what is available and what needs to be ordered.
Marketsupport can support field delivery and inventory management programs where representatives service those locations while the system helps manage inventory and ordering.
The physical environment is different from a retail shelf, but the operational challenge has similarities. Products are distributed across multiple locations, inventory needs to be monitored, people need to perform work in the field, and information needs to move between those people and the organization responsible for the program.
Once those components are connected, a field services partner can provide considerably more value than simply supplying labour.
For manufacturers, this creates opportunities to think differently about which parts of their field operations truly need to remain internal.
What this means for brands and manufacturers
Building a large field operation internally requires more than hiring people.
Organizations need recruitment, training, scheduling, management, geographic coverage, operational processes, technology and reporting. When ordering, inventory or delivery enters the equation, another layer of infrastructure is required.
An outsourced retail merchandising partner can remove a significant portion of that operational burden, but the partner needs the systems to support increasingly complex programs.
That is one of the reasons Marketsupport has continued investing in technology.
Our goal is not to turn merchandising into a software product. It is to give our field teams and operations teams better infrastructure so that we can take responsibility for more sophisticated programs and execute them efficiently.
For a client, that could mean using Marketsupport to stock and service products across a network of retail stores. For another organization, it could include DSD ordering. Another program could involve inventory management, replenishment or field delivery.
The common element is the ability to connect people in the field with the processes required to keep products moving.
More information from the shelf can lead to better decisions
One of the greatest advantages of connecting technology with field execution is visibility.
Retail programs generate enormous amounts of information at the store level. The challenge is turning that information into something useful.
A field team may encounter recurring stock issues, differences between locations or operational challenges that affect product availability. When those observations remain disconnected, their value is limited. When field information becomes part of a broader operational system, organizations have a better opportunity to identify patterns and respond.
This does not mean collecting information simply because technology makes it possible. The objective should always be to capture information that helps improve execution.
For manufacturers, better visibility can support decisions about inventory, replenishment, field resources and program priorities. For Marketsupport, it helps us understand what is happening across the programs we manage and where attention may be required.
The result is a field operation that becomes more accountable and more connected to the client’s business objectives.
Retail merchandising still comes down to execution
There will always be new retail technologies, platforms and automation tools. The measure that ultimately matters is whether they help products get where they need to be and help people execute their work more effectively.
That is how Marketsupport views our investment in technology.
We are not moving away from in-store merchandising. We are strengthening the infrastructure behind it.
Our merchandisers will continue walking into stores, stocking shelves and supporting the physical work required to keep products available to consumers. What is different is that the activity taking place inside those stores can now be connected to a broader operational ecosystem involving ordering, inventory management, delivery and program oversight.
For brands and manufacturers trying to manage increasingly complex retail environments, that combination can be powerful.
The future of retail merchandising will not be built by choosing between experienced people and better technology. It will be built by connecting the two so effectively that every person in the field has the infrastructure required to do more with every store visit.
Marketsupport is a premium merchandising company is building that capability now. Visit www.marketsupport.ca.
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