Why Collaborate with a JBP?

Joint Business Plans (JBPs) are an important tool for FMCG companies to collaborate with their customers and develop a mutually beneficial strategy.

A great Joint Business Plan with your customer helps with:

Enhanced Engagement: The process of creating a JBP is, in itself, a pathway to drive better quality engagement. Collaborative ways of working are established and refined during the process and endure well beyond the 6-12-week period of creation.

Improved Alignment: JBPs help FMCG companies align their goals and objectives with those of their customers. By working together, both parties develop a shared understanding of what success looks like and how it can be achieved.

Category Centricity: As the common ground between supplier and retailer, collectively identifying and prioritizing consumer & shopper opportunities is central to the JBP process, over both short-term and long-term time horizons.

Enhanced Innovation: JBPs provide an opportunity for suppliers and their customers to share insights, which can lead to shared ideation and fast-tracked New Product Development initiatives.

Increased Efficiency: By working together on a JBP, FMCG companies and their partner customers can streamline their operations, identifying and reducing inefficiencies. This can result in cost savings and increased profitability for both parties.

Better Relationships: A JBP demonstrates commitment to the relationship on both sides. This enables suppliers and customers to build trust and a mutual understanding which in turn fosters a greater willingness to integrate strategies and support each other's platforms and priorities.

Competitive Advantage: With improved communication and mutual understanding, JBPs can help FMCG companies gain a competitive advantage as they better-tailor their approach, and engage earlier, to meet customer needs and preferences (Customer Centricity).

Improved Results: Engaging well together, pooling resources, following a practical and powerful JBP process and executing shared plans together improves business performance and creates joint value.

Joint Business Planning is an important tool for FMCG companies.

Our Top Tips to a great JBP

Stage 1: Groundwork & Intent

Start with a clear and mutually beneficial end-in-mind

• Ensure a practical powerful JBP creation process is in place

• Align a parallel customer engagement process

• Secure internal leadership alignment and support – including resources.

• Map inputs to the process: Insights, strategies, current /planned initiatives and workstreams across both demand and supply sides of your business.

• Seek customer perspective early: Ensure resource is committed on their side too and you are clear as to what great will look like as a result.

Stage 2: Situation Assessment

Assess the situation through lenses in-line with the scope of your JBP: Commercial, Market, Point of Purchase, Operations, People

• Ask what is on the customer’s mind: Listen, listen, listen.

• Table anticipated “pain points” or “jobs to be done” so they can be explored

• Proactively generate a Case for Change.

• Seek opportunities to pool data and insights – it is "joint" after all.

• Seek to identify, align and prioritise the Opportunity Areas that will be at the heart of the JBP for the next 1, 2 and 3 years

Stage 3: Strategy Integration

With relationships and trust building over several weeks of JBP engagement, it is time to share our category, retailer & supplier strategies, pillars and platforms

• Establish our Opportunity Areas (or, flipped around, Issues to Solve)

• Our common-ground, ensure “shoppers” are front and centre

• Always show genuine flexibility to adapt to the customer’s strategy

• Retaining the construct of 360-degrees - Commercial, Market, Point of Purchase, Operations, People - think towards a balanced JBP Scorecard and flex towards how the customer prefers to measure.

Stage 4: JBP Development

Continue with the Opportunity Areas focus, guided by the Strategy Integration of supplier & customer, now mapping and ideating initiatives.

• Don’t re-invent the wheel: Review previous “Win:Win” initiatives and look to repeat with a “how can we make it bigger and better?” joint-mindset.

• Always endeavour to line-up initiatives & activities against the customer’s own category, marketing & promotional platforms

• Include joint-workstreams: These often have Supply, Operations and Customer Service leads.

• Cost-up initiatives together, identify what each party can bring.

• Begin to think about respective implementation roles.

Stage 5: Execution and Ways of Working

Design the ongoing business rhythms and wiring to ensure – rather than just a “project” – the JBP becomes a true jointly advantageous new way-of-working.

• Laser-sharp ladder-up of commercials over time horizon/s: Waterfalls, Scorecard, ROIs

• Identify risk & mitigation strategies

• Firm-up joint-commitments to implement, measure and course correct

• Socialise across and within both businesses: All team members need to know their role in delivering the plan.

• With engagement so critical and stronger relationships built: Always, always, (appropriately) celebrate success!

Shape the Future, don't be Shaped by It

In summary, Joint Business Plans enable FMCG companies to collaborate with their customers and develop mutually beneficial strategy, plans and ways of working. They improve alignment, increase efficiency, enhance innovation, build better customer relationships - ultimately delivering better ongoing commercial results and often creating competitive advantage.

Whilst different customers will have different preferences on how to do a JBP with them, the journey is as important as the destination. We've shared some tips that, in our experience, help you and your customer get the most out of JBP together.

Finally, a thought: If a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing extremely well. Set yourself up for success with JBPs by carefully considering these top tips, and for more support, please reach out to us at Real World Marketing.

Why Real World Marketing?

Our experienced consultants and trainers are former FMCG leaders who have guided some of the brightest minds in o

ur field. With deep-rooted expertise in the consumer goods industry, we are well-placed to support you and your teams as trusted coaches and mentors, with help tailored to your unique requirements.