Wise Snack Foods was originally founded in 1921 by Earl Wise, a young grocer who decided to start making potato chips with the extra potatoes he had in the shop. 100 years later, it is on every store shelf in America in multiple flavors, shapes, and brands. Shortly after Wise celebrated its centennial anniversary, they decided to implement Margin Minder.
Margin Minder Spreading Across Multiple ARCA Continental Snack Companies
The goal of the partnership was to move from data overload to actionable insight, empowering teams across the organization to make smarter, faster, and more profitable decisions. It was so successful that within months of implementing Margin Minder, word spread to their sister companies under ARCA Continental Snack Companies. Inalecsa, a top savory snack manufacturer in Ecuador, and Bokados, a top snack producer in Mexico, both decided Margin Minder was the solution they needed to streamline growth.
The Wise Snack implementation was complex as they had a number of strategic goals, including executing sales support tools, fact-based selling models, and tracking profitability at a very precise level. Chris Konyk, Senior CPG Consultant on Salient’s approach to the implementation:
“With every new implementation, we outline an execution strategy starting on day one and leading the Salient team to work with the client until a full company-wide utilization of Margin Minder is reached. We ensure that the work done is timely, efficient, and meets the needs of the client.”
Tracking & Reporting on Profitability: Putting Insights into Decision-Makers’ Hands
One of the most important aspects of the implementation was the ability for the client to track profitability at a precise level. Before Salient, Wise had the data, but it was locked in manual spreadsheets, complex formulas, and siloed analysis processes. While effective, this method slowed down decision-making and limited access to insights.
To achieve this, the traditional ‘Margin Minder’ was extended with over 100 various P&L components, getting down to EBITDA to carefully monitor the impact on profitability from various fluctuating pieces. To enable Teams across multiple Departments to access the data, Wise chose to utilize Salient’s dashboards. The platform democratized data, putting real-time, actionable insights into the hands of more decision-makers faster than ever before. Teams across functions can now easily navigate the information, monitor performance, and identify growth opportunities on demand.
Salient also helped the organization logically group products based on the consumer channel of each package type. When package changes occur, they are still trended in the same product group now, so sales effectiveness at each channel can be easily analyzed even after SKU numbers change for the product that is intended for the exact same consumer segment (same spot on the shelf).
Wise is now entering the next phase of deployment: leveraging Salient’s built-in analytical models to identify and capitalize on distribution opportunities. By investing in the power of Margin Minder, Wise has made a strategic decision to help streamline growth, productivity, and profitability.