Who has the top consumer packaged goods and retail supply chains?

Each year, SCDigest reports on the annual survey results from Kantar Retail (which acquired Cannondale Associates, the prior authors of the study, about a year ago), which ranks the top consumer packaged goods industry supply chains and the top retail supply chains in the retail segments that sell those packaged goods products.

The full Kantar survey and report, which it calls its PowerRanking, was just released for 2010, and covers a number of company performance measures for both consumer goods manufacturers and retailers, including such areas as brand power, marketing programs, sales teams, overall business fundamentals, etc. Supply chain management is one of those categories included in the survey.

The rankings for this year, as always, were developed through the interesting methodology of asking retailers to rate manufacturers on each of these categories, and manufacturers to rank retailers on a similar set of attributes.

Both manufacturers and retailers are from the consumer packaged goods, food and beverage areas. That means manufacturers in such categories as apparel/soft goods, electronics, hard goods, etc. are not included. Similarly, the participating retailers are drawn exclusively from sectors such as mass merchandise, traditional grocery, warehouse clubs, and drug store chains that focus on consumer packaged goods sales.

The theme of this latest report is "Superior Peformance in the New Normal," with the report saying it really is a new environment after the depths of the recession for both manufacturers and retailers.

"The New Normal is not just about frugality or low prices. The shopping pattern is more contingent

on prioritization. Shoppers today cannot have it all, but they are making choices about what is

important," the report says. "The decision shift is from “and” to “or.” The prioritization context also has ramificationsfor the marketplace. In a frugal marketplace, the strategy would be to compete solely on price.

In a prioritization marketplace, the strategy is to be at the top of the priority list."

Top Manufacturer Supply Chains

This week, we look at the top consumer packaged goods suppy chains, as rated by some 35 retailers, ranging from Wal-Mart to Kroger, CVS, Dollar General and more.

(Supply Chain Trends and Issues Article - Continued Below)

As shown in the chart below taken from the 2010 report, Proctger & Gamble again topped the list, as it has for many years, although its percentage ranking dropped for 2010 by a little over two points. The percentages are calculated by the number of retail respondents which rank a given manufacturer as having one of the top three supply chains in the industry.

Source: Kantar Retail PoweRanking 2010

Despite an array of different supply chain initiatives recently, number 2 Kraft also saw its percentate fall a bit, while Unilever must have something goling on in its supply chain, raising its percentage this year by a whopping 8.7 points and moving from fifth to fourth place.

Heinz broke into the top 10 this year, as did Coca-Cola despite seeing a small drop in its percentage over 2009, with these two companies replacing Kimberly-Clark and Campbell's in the list.

The report noted just a few comments from survey respondents:

• “P&G has this covered from order entry to the time it takes unloading the truck.”
• “Unilever has capabilities to share savings realized through collaborative supply chain logistics.”
• “Kraft is willing to innovate.”

Also worth looking at were similar rankings for a manufacturer's sales/customer teams, which increasingly have a strong supply chain component to them. The list is similar to the supply chain rankings, though here Kraft comes out as number 1. The large number of negative percentage changes in the top 10 says to us that many vendors that didn't make the top list nevertheless are making progress in the eyes of retailers.

Source: Kantar Retail PoweRanking 2010

Next week, we will take a similar look at the top retail supply chains as rated by manufacturers.

What’s your reaction to this year’s Kantar Retail CPG manufacturing supply chain rankings? Think any of the rankings are out of whack? What are the key attributes of a world class CPG retail supply chain? Let us know your thoughts at the Feedback button below.

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