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FMBX News
Posted: Apr 19, 2011
Quofore receives "strong positive" from Gartner
Benchmarking from Gartner has assessed 20 different sales force automation systems for the consumer goods industry (“Sales Force Automation in the Consumer Goods Industry.”), with only three providers attaining its top grade ‘strong positive’ and scoring the industry ‘positive’.
The three top ranked providers included one system that is pitched directly at retail execution field marketers. The three ‘strong positives’ were for Accenture CAS, Oracle and Quofore. Positives were accorded to a further seven providers, Interactive Edge, MEI, RW3 Technologies, Spring Wireless, StayinFront, Synectics and Xtel. Of the remaining ten, nine were rated ‘Promising’ and one, from Klee, ‘caution’.
Salesforce.com was not benchmarked in the tests. Gartner says it “has insufficient industry-specific functionality to qualify for inclusion.” Microsoft’s offering was also left out for similar reasons.
Of the three ‘strong positives’ Quofore is the one which has most clearly defined itself in the retail execution sector.
The reasons for a focus on sales force automation in the consumer goods sector will be familiar to a number of large brand owners in the field marketing sector.
“Sales force automation solutions continued to garner considerable attention in 2010 as manufacturers wrestled with major industry issues such as growing spending on trade promotions, product availability and retailers' analytical capabilities outpacing those of manufacturers,” comments Gartner’s Dale Hagemeyer in the report.
Hagemeyer also added; “Trade promotion management/optimization (TPM/TPO) remains the primary driver in the SFA marketplace, but retail execution is coming up fast as CG companies better understand the headquarters aspects of their promotions and need to shift their focus to in-store execution and seek to grow their business by executing better through technology solutions in developing countries.”
“With our extensive consumer products industry knowledge, Quofore continues to help customers achieve increased field force effectiveness and excellence in retail execution,” said Desmond Miller, chief executive officer, Quofore. “We believe Gartner’s “Strong Positive” rating helps confirm our strategy of delivering powerful functionality on mobile devices that can deliver cost effective global rollouts, drive retail activity optimisation (RAO) and deliver better business outcomes.”
Quofore’s customers span six continents and include leading global corporations such as Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Kellogg, Kraft, Brown-Forman, Dyson, and Black & Decker.
