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Consumer goods

“The need for constant evolution just to stay competitive is accelerating as both internal and external challenges herald change across the consumer goods industry. Berkeley can help CPG companies respond to these pressures wherever they are in their transformation journey - turning potential threats into opportunities.”

Jon Bradbury

Contact Jon Jon

“The need for constant evolution just to stay competitive is accelerating as both internal and external challenges herald change across the consumer goods industry. Berkeley can help CPG companies respond to these pressures wherever they are in their transformation journey - turning potential threats into opportunities.”

Jon Bradbury

Contact Jon Jon

Transformation is essential...

...for consumer packaged goods (CPGs) organizations to continue to drive growth.

The rise of digitalization and data, new disruptive challenger brands, increased emphasis on sustainability and the breakdown of traditional market archetypes are just some of the megatrends impacting the entire CPG industry and the way it looks to the future. At Berkeley, we bring our strong consumer goods experience to bear, but will never assume we know your business better than you do. Embedded as part of your team, we help you quickly define and deliver the change you need to succeed around the world, online, with your customers, consumers, distributors and suppliers.  

It’s about doing it fast and doing it right, which suits us down to the ground. With our ‘low volume, high value’ model, we won’t overwhelm your CPG business with large teams or take months to produce results.

Enhancing the consumer packaged goods industry through digital transformation

CPG companies, traditionally B2B-focused, have the opportunity to evolve in the digital era. There are now opportunities for a dual focus on both B2B and B2C, emphasizing growth and margin over efficiency. This is mainly seen in the shift from prioritizing the customer (retailer, distributor, or outlet owner) to directly engaging with the end consumer (shopper). Our approach involves crafting a comprehensive top-down digital vision for CPG companies, not just a bottom-up capability strategy. This vision encompasses seizing B2C opportunities while maintaining a focus on traditional B2B relationships. It also emphasizes the necessary cultural adjustment toward a "digital mindset," fostering consumer-centricity, agility, innovation, and quicker responses to market changes.

Customer (sales) transformation in consumer packaged goods companies

We help companies in the CPG industry drive their business performance by harnessing the power of their data. From net revenue management/revenue growth management through to retail execution (in market execution), trade promotions management and trade terms optimization, and on to ecommerce and direct-to-consumer channels, we can help you set direction and quickly drive the changes you need. If you need to transform the role of your salespeople, merchandizers and distributors; implement a new operating model; or deliver new technology capabilities we’ll help you set up and run programs that deliver the real and lasting change needed to truly optimize your sales across all channels and markets. 

Channel transformation for consumer packaged goods

We can help you build and deliver on ecommerce strategies (pure play, omni channel, direct-to-consumer and new business models) that are both profitable and meet consumer expectations. From portfolio (value density, packaging, bundling, etc.), to demand optimization (content, SEO, etc.) and through to execution (CRM, pricing, supply chain, etc.). By being forward thinking, challenging the norm, and offering structure and rigor, we help our CPG clients adapt and even transform their operating model and core capabilities to compete.

Consumer (marketing) transformation in consumer pagacked goods

Our CPG industry consulting helps organizations build and leverage digital capabilities to drive their businesses forward. From transforming consumer insight and relationship management to optimizing digital assets and product information management we can help you deliver the latest and best on-line consumer experience. Wherever there’s an opportunity on which to build, or a challenge to overcome, we can help you use digital to meet your aspirations.

Consumer packaged goods services / operations transformation

Berkeley can help you set the right CPG industry strategy and deliver the necessary transformation to your key ‘back office’ functions in order to best align and support the new business reality. We work with our clients to help drive global efficiency through shared business services as well as get the ‘local vs. global’ balance right. 

Sector

Retail

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Sector

Supply chain and logistics 

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Sector

Manufacturing

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Berkeley’s involvement has been truly transformative. They have helped us unlock the power of an end-to-end offshore model by helping us reset our joint approach, addressing all the major areas but in particular moving us to embrace a sprint production model."

Global eContent & Experience Design Director, a consumer goods company

Clients often ask us...

Question 1

How can I setup my big transformation programs for success, especially when they need to span multiple markets, product categories and functions?  How can I best govern so much change effectively?

Question 2

How can I make the most of the shift to ecommerce channels (in all forms – omni, pure-play and direct-to-consumer) in the CPG industry? What operating model do I need to make that happen?

Question 3

How can I define an overall digital vision and strategy and make the most of the digital transformation in all its forms? 

Question 4

How can I take optimization and automation of my global business services to the next level, for a truly integrated experience that fully leverages digital?

Question 5

How do I take the strategic use of data as an enterprise platform to the next level, and optimize the opportunities for data and analytics, including AI?

Question 6

What does ‘next generation’ revenue growth management (net revenue management) look like, and how can I practically implement it?

Question 7

How can I build sustainability into the heart of everything we do?

Question 8

How can I use data and AI to optimize and simplify my product portfolio?

Question 9

How can I better partner with my retailer customers to drive mutual growth?

Client stories

Unilever - managing project turnaround

One of the world’s leading fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies, selling its products in over 190 countries. The Unilever of today has been created over many years of mergers and acquisitions. While these have enabled the group to grow, they have brought with them complications, not least for the group’s IT function.

The function's response has been to try to simplify its IT infrastructure. One important objective has been to transition to a single global SAP financial and management reporting platform, named Victory. We helped them achieve this goal, by reviewing the project underway to deliver Victory, before supporting a project turnaround and ultimately project managing it through to a successful delivery. 

Unilever - HR IT Strategy

We were asked to help Unilever with their HR IT strategy and roadmap. Unilever didn’t have the in-house capacity and skills to handle all the work themselves so they were looking for outside expertise. They wanted independent experts who could put together a purely Unilever-focused view of the world, allowing them to stay in control of defining their strategy, rather than give the responsibility to someone else.

High stakes vendor selection

Our client engaged us to provide program delivery expertise and to help them run a rigorous vendor selection and mobilization process, appointing the organizations who would ultimately support them in creating a new fit for purpose infrastructure.

Unilever - financial reporting

Unilever wanted to redefine its approach to management reporting, extending existing SAP tools to deliver a simpler and faster European financial close and management reporting timetable. We helped them evaluate their options, define plans and create the business case to secure funding for the project and then took over mobilization and management of the 50-strong global vendor/client team which would deliver it.

Global consumer goods organization

We helped a global consumer goods organization deliver a significant Finance transformation across over 100 countries. 

This involved both implementing a new suite of SAP systems for financial consolidation and all group management and financial reporting, and also streamlining their financial reporting by consolidating the group financial results directly from the source ledgers in each of their 600+ Legal Entities around the world.  

Global FMCG

We delivered an in house, one-stop-shop for social listening and consumer analytics insights enabling FMCG brands to better understand and engage with consumers, develop strategies, conduct market research and plan marketing to drive growth and performance globally. An early proof of concept was stood up in a matter of weeks and enabled consumer behaviour to be analyzed differently to yield results in changed marketing campaigns. 

an integrated mobility and CRM solution

One of the world’s largest consumer goods companies was seeking to create a single, integrated mobility and customer relationship management (CRM) solution for use during quality inspection store visits by the retail sales force across Europe.

Client stories

One of the world’s leading fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies, selling its products in over 190 countries. The Unilever of today has been created over many years of mergers and acquisitions. While these have enabled the group to grow, they have brought with them complications, not least for the group’s IT function.

The function's response has been to try to simplify its IT infrastructure. One important objective has been to transition to a single global SAP financial and management reporting platform, named Victory. We helped them achieve this goal, by reviewing the project underway to deliver Victory, before supporting a project turnaround and ultimately project managing it through to a successful delivery. 

We were asked to help Unilever with their HR IT strategy and roadmap. Unilever didn’t have the in-house capacity and skills to handle all the work themselves so they were looking for outside expertise. They wanted independent experts who could put together a purely Unilever-focused view of the world, allowing them to stay in control of defining their strategy, rather than give the responsibility to someone else.

Our client engaged us to provide program delivery expertise and to help them run a rigorous vendor selection and mobilization process, appointing the organizations who would ultimately support them in creating a new fit for purpose infrastructure.

Unilever wanted to redefine its approach to management reporting, extending existing SAP tools to deliver a simpler and faster European financial close and management reporting timetable. We helped them evaluate their options, define plans and create the business case to secure funding for the project and then took over mobilization and management of the 50-strong global vendor/client team which would deliver it.

We helped a global consumer goods organization deliver a significant Finance transformation across over 100 countries. 

This involved both implementing a new suite of SAP systems for financial consolidation and all group management and financial reporting, and also streamlining their financial reporting by consolidating the group financial results directly from the source ledgers in each of their 600+ Legal Entities around the world.  

Services

Finance transformation

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Sector

Consumer goods

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We delivered an in house, one-stop-shop for social listening and consumer analytics insights enabling FMCG brands to better understand and engage with consumers, develop strategies, conduct market research and plan marketing to drive growth and performance globally. An early proof of concept was stood up in a matter of weeks and enabled consumer behaviour to be analyzed differently to yield results in changed marketing campaigns. 

One of the world’s largest consumer goods companies was seeking to create a single, integrated mobility and customer relationship management (CRM) solution for use during quality inspection store visits by the retail sales force across Europe.