Posts by Paul McEniff

Commercial training is widely invested in, yet the gap between learning and performance remains significant. In many organisations, capability programmes are well designed but fail to translate into consistent behavioural change in the day job.  Research has found that up to 84% of training is forgotten within 90 days without reinforcement, highlighting how quickly value…

Why many FMCG growth strategies fail and how to ensure yours delivers In today’s FMCG environment, most organisations are not short of ambition. Growth strategies are clearly defined, priorities are set, and expectations from boards, investors and customers continue to rise. Yet a more fundamental question often goes unchallenged: Are you truly set up to…

For most leadership teams, the challenge is not recognising the need for growth. The real challenge is knowing where that growth will come from and making the right decisions early enough to capture it. Markets are becoming more complex. Channels are evolving. Customer expectations are shifting. In many sectors, particularly FMCG and other consumer goods,…

In an increasingly challenging retail environment, FMCG companies are finding it harder than ever to deliver top line sales growth. Market consolidation, the growth of e-commerce, the inexorable impact of the discounters and smaller brands taking share from the larger more established brands, are all having an impact on almost every company in the sector.…

If you are a commercial director you don’t need us to tell you that you are probably investing more than 20% of your revenue in trade spend. But what if we told you that you could transform that 20% cost into a driver of growth? In general, the intent with investment into trade spend is…

The premise is simple – HFSS brands that are prevented from driving sales through display or multibuys are going to rely more heavily on driving sales from the Shelf.  But what does this mean in practice?  Previously we’ve written about the HFSS Impact on Promotions here, and on Terms here, as both are directly impacted from the HFSS regulations. However,…

While the primary impact of HFSS regulations in 2022 is on Promotions and off-shelf Display, HFSS also has significant implications for the Customer Terms that fund Display, Feature Space and Merchandising.  This is especially true for brands that currently fund their promotions and feature space with on-invoice promotion funding, or ‘Back to Front margin’ (B2F Margin) as it’s…

First COVID, then Brexit – there’s no shortage of challenge in the grocery industry right now.  But while the industry is still reacting to these two major disruptions a third is already imminent – as the government plans to restrict promotions ongoing on High Fat Sugar and Salt (HFSS) products as early as April 2022.  Since…

I had a glimpse into the future yesterday – in the Asda at Stevenage.  I know, I never thought I’d say that either – but they’ve recently installed electronic shelf labels (or ESL’s) to most of their lines in the largest UK trial of this technology to date.  There are many benefits to ESL’s but…

We are living through the most economically disruptive period in living memory – and there is no obvious end in sight.  Some products and channels have seen 5-10 years of sales growth in a matter of months, while others have dropped off or seemingly sunk without trace, and the forecast accuracy measures for 2020 are…

How many of us made New Years’ Resolutions in the run-up to December 31st? If you, like me, made promises to yourself to do things like exercise more, eat more healthy food, lose weight, read more books, etc, then you should realise that we are not alone. Frequent studies show that a significant percentage of…

We’re often asked by clients to help them improve business performance and deliver incremental revenue and profit growth through training and developing the sales skills and capabilities of their sales and commercial teams. Often the first step that we take with a client is to carry out a Training Needs Analysis to help the client understand the…