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The Success Story of Revolution in Financial Management and Team Collaboration

How the national full-cycle FMCG distributor uses Creatio’s no-code platform to streamline budget management and orchestrate trade marketing support for clients
How the national full-cycle FMCG distributor uses Creatio’s no-code platform to streamline budget management and orchestrate trade marketing support for clients

ABOUT SAVSERVICE

SAVSERVICE is a leading distributor of goods in Ukraine and Central Europe with a portfolio of over 75 brands. The company's mission is to make quality products such as beverages, sweets, baby food, hygiene and beauty products, textiles, and home goods accessible for daily comfort. SAVSERVICE is the national distributor for 80% of its partners.

Key facts

30+
years in the market
29 offices
in 24 regions
Excellent service for
60,000 retail outlets
1400+
qualified employees

Project requirements

  • Increase team productivity and effectiveness of promo plans
  • Full control over budget usage and financial discipline
  • Instant access to operational data and consolidated reporting
  • Full digitization of distributor business

The Right Technology for Maximum Freedom

SAVSERVICE does more than distribute and handle logistics for major international and local brands. They also offer clients a complete set of services, including collecting and delivering orders, promoting products through different channels, and analyzing financial results. Key Account Management divisions have been created for all directions of SAVSERVICE business to ensure the implementation of modern trade approaches.

SAVSERVICE regularly implements innovative and high-tech projects to accelerate order processing, increase warehouse operations productivity, and optimize transport logistics. An integral part of SAVSERVICE's digital model is trade marketing (TM) processes. For managing promo budgets and implementing trade marketing support for clients, the company opted for Creatio’s no-code platform for workflow automation paired with a Sales'Up application.

Managing funds is an extremely important aspect of working with national networks. With the development of the company, we began to handle amounts reaching 50 million USD annually. The cost of a mistake can be painful for the company, so we contemplated creating a program where all the funds would be concentrated. Considering that Excel or our internal accounting systems did not provide the needed capabilities, a decision was made to implement a separate management platform for our team.
Nataliia Sushelnytska
Director of Trade Marketing Department
at SAVSERVICE

The pressing operational challenges that prompted SAVSERVICE to automate trade marketing processes include:

  • Lack of a unified accounting program.
  • Human errors.
  • Lack of a centralized tool to control budget spending

The Start of the Project:

In 2018, SAVSERVICE began planning a new program. The project team spent several months creating the vision and technical design for a system called AFINO: All Funds in One.

At the beginning of the project, we understood that we would be looking for a powerful, and at the same time flexible, platform with the ability for quick adaptation and scaling. Indeed, with the help of the Creatio platform, we were able to meet many of our needs.
Yulia Voytyuk
Head of Product Business Support
at SAVSERVICE

In 2019, with the participation of Creatio’s partner Sales'Up, the new AFINO system was built using Creatio’s no-code tools. The platform became a single digital portal where management, including Key Account Management (KAM) could collaborate. A clear digitization strategy, regular feedback, and Creatio's no-code technologies allow the company to continuously expand capabilities with a maximum degree of freedom and improve the system to provide users with more tools for effective work.

AFINO Concept and Technologies Used

The primary function of AFINO is to centralize the management of trade marketing resources and promotion budgets, unifying them within a cohesive environment.

We have developed a system that is adapted to our type of work and to all our company’s current procedures. It's a flexible tool, in which every account manager or each employee responsible for a fund can plan various types of promotions. The system allows for monitoring potential violations of internal recommended rules during planning, additional volumes, and other key indicators.
Nataliia Sushelnytska
Director of Trade Marketing Department
at SAVSERVICE

AFINO handles every stage of the process, from agreeing on terms with partners to planning and coordinating sales and promotional activities, controlling expenses and payments, balancing funds, and preparing reports. To ensure the integrity of the process, there is a two-way synchronization of AFINO with SAVSERVICE's internal ERP system. Specifically, discount documents for planned promotions are sent from AFINO to the ERP system, while data on merchandise turnover for actual results is sent from the ERP system to AFINO.

At the core of AFINO is the powerful Creatio platform, which, thanks to no-code technologies and a unique composable architecture, provides the highest level of freedom in workflow automation and CRM. The project also uses the Sales'Up FMCG Management for the Creatio product, which includes a wide range of ready-to-use functionality for automating the processes of any complexity for manufacturing and distribution companies of any size.

SAVSERVICE is distinguished by its structure, and we always strive for excellence. Within our strategic goals, the Creatio platform is identified as a high priority in the direction of distributor innovation. The company's priority is the priority of every manager and every rank-and-file employee. We believe that when everyone is focused and has a common vector, then the whole company moves faster towards results.
Nataliia Sushelnytska
Director of Trade Marketing Department
at SAVSERVICE
Automation of processes in the FMCG industry is special in that companies operate with massive data volumes, measured by tens of millions of records. This is a vivid example of a data-driven business, as the ability to use accumulated data to find patterns and quick transformation is a real driver of development.
Oleksandr Andronik
CEO of Sales'Up

Implementation of a Systematic Approach to Workflow Automation

Transparent Management of Budgets and Funds

The biannual planning cycle at SAVSERVICE starts with the formation of sales forecasts and promotional budgets for each network. Information is entered into the system by Key Account Managers (KAMs), then approved by department heads and, if necessary, trade marketers.

By knowing the available funds for conducting promotions, managers plan and launch individual trade marketing (TM) activities. Based on the actual results of the conducted promotions, the Creatio system imports on-invoice expenses from the ERP system, and additionally, managers record the actual off-invoice expenses. As a result, the system compiles a balance of funds, showing available balances or overspending.

Thanks to automation, we have obtained a transparent picture of fund utilization. This allows us to manage the funds in a balanced way and plan more effectively in both the short-term and long-term perspective.
Nataliia Sushelnytska
Director of Trade Marketing Department
at SAVSERVICE

Unified Process for Planning Promotions

In Creatio, information about all planned and carried out promotions is consolidated. Currently, about 50,000 TM activities have been created in the system. For organizing a clear process, standardized forms are provided, automatic checks of internal rules and restrictions are carried out, and multi-level procedures for approving promo activities, documents, payments, etc., are configured.

Control of Documents and Payments

A separate section is provided to manage and track payments of invoices or other documents received from partners. Managers submit applications for reimbursement of expenses, which are processed by the financial and accounting departments. Complete information about planned and actual payments is available to managers and their supervisors for cases when additional verification is needed.

All client commercial agreements are maintained in Creatio. They are grouped according to our internal classification, for example, trade terms, promotions, visual representation on shelves, merchandising, etc. Therefore, all the funds are consolidated in one system.
Nataliia Sushelnytska
Director of Trade Marketing Department at SAVSERVICE

Deep Analytics and Reporting Preparation

Heads of Departments receive weekly reports from the system with the current balance of funds and regularly conduct internal reviews with managers to analyze the effectiveness of working with funds. Creatio provides the capability to analyze each promotion by examining the overall financial results, considering factors at both the product line and client levels. Utilizing this comprehensive information, SAVSERVICE plans future initiatives and crafts well-informed recommendations, pinpointing specific activities that should either be pursued further or avoided.

Organization of Trade Marketers' Workflows

SAVSERVICE commenced the project by automating the workflows associated with working with national networks. This was a key first step since Modern Trade is a big part of their business. After they improved the Key Account Management (KAM) processes in Creatio, the team moved on to the next step, working on other sales channels managed by trade marketing.

Automation Results and Recipes for Success

Utilizing the integrated solutions of Creatio and Sales'Up, SAVSERVICE has successfully implemented a single consolidated program that unites the entire SAVSERVICE team. This program aligns them under one coordinate system and streamlines reporting by adopting a uniform format across all facets of the business. Information on the generation and expenditure of funds is instantly accessible at any time, enabling transparent financial tracking.

Creatio's platform further enhances operations by amalgamating all essential commercial and financial data within one unified environment. This integration allows for the management of data, affording the ability to probe into each Trade Marketing (TM) activity, evaluate various scenarios, perform detailed plan-versus-actual sales analyses, and ascertain overall efficiency. Consequently, managers are empowered to execute their responsibilities with heightened quality, while leaders improve financial oversight, facilitating the discovery of innovative avenues for business growth.

We listen to the system end-users and regularly conduct surveys so that everyone can express their opinion and share ideas on how to improve work. Such feedback is very valuable to us, as it helps to identify bottlenecks and create functionality that is truly convenient and efficient to work with.
Yulia Voytyuk
Head of Product Business Support
at SAVSERVICE

About Sales'Up

Sales'Up is a modern full-cycle solutions integrator company that supports projects from the stage of formulating initial requirements to launch and comprehensive client support in the future. With over 8 years of experience in industry automation, the company offers no-code tools and ready-made solutions in the field of data management.
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