Rahmani Group Trade Marketing Capability

Construct a First Class Trade Marketing Capability

Year

2017

Key Deliverables

Skills Gap Analysis
Core Trade Marketing Skills Training
Recruitment Support

The Challenge

Adjust to Iran’s Changing Retail Trade Dynamics & Competitive Situation

Under the well-known Mani brand, Rahmani Group’s food division is the market leader in packaged nuts and dried fruit. The company did not yet have a dedicated trade marketing function, with these responsibilities failing to the marketing team to deliver. With Iran’s rapidly changing retail trade dynamics and competitive situation, manufacturers are becoming increasingly required to differentiate their plans by trade channel and in some cases by customer. To succeed, Rahmani Group realised that building a first-class trade marketing capability would be critical.

The Challenge

Adjust to Iran’s Changing Retail Trade Dynamics & Competitive Situation

Year

2017

Key Deliverables

Skills Gap Analysis
Core Trade Marketing Skills Training
Recruitment Support

The Work

Create & Train a New Team of Trade Marketers

By extensively assessing Rahmani Group’s sales capabilities and trade marketing practices, and comparing them to good FMCG practice, Certius detected a gap between marketing plans and initiatives, and sales implementation. The existing trade marketing function focused largely on point of sale execution, and so was not capable of devising and executing category growth plans, channel or customer development plans, and initiative deployment. This was an important gap which needed to be closed in order to ensure the success of Rahman Group’s many plans. To help do this, Certius designed a trade marketing capability concept which enabled Rahmani Group’s trade marketing to drive the business. We also created an implementation plan to build required trade marketing skills, capabilities and tools. In order to better facilitate the creation of the new department, we then helped Rahman Group identify high potential candidates, hire external ones and transfer employees from the sales department, as well as assisting with the onboarding process. To help empower the new team, we then designed a training and coaching roadmap, and provided training in the core trade marketing skills of category strategy and segmentation; SKU analysis and classification; market coverage planning; point of sale vision and effective merchandising; pricing and promotions; development of customer value proposition; and concept selling.

The Impact

Deliver Compelling Trade Marketing & Sales Initiatives

By working with Certius, Rahmani Group’s new trade marketing function masters the core capabilities required for delivering trade marketing and sales initiatives and is highly effective in creating demand with customers.

Next Case Study

Create Brand Differentiation

The majority of businesses operating in the Iranian dairy market pursue a similar strategy when it comes to brand positioning. Little variation when it came to brand image, and a general lack of differentiation, lead to heavy price competition, and ultimately resulted in low profitability. Ramak, a leading Shiraz based dairy company in the south of Iran, was no exception. Their brand lacked distinct features in the minds’ of potential customers and consumers, meaning it was unable to become the preferred brand of consumers. Ramak’s challenge was to find the optimal brand positioning that would ensure the brand was able to contribute to driving sales and allow the company to achieve a price premium.