The client is a manufacturer of frozen entrees that are sold to grocery retailers through a network of grocery wholesalers. The industry has a long established tradition of offering financial incentives at the wholesale and retail level to stimulate product demand; this practice is known in the industry as trade promotion spending. According to industry surveys, “promotional spending accounts for 54% of food companies’ marketing budgets and represents 17.3% of gross sales.” The sheer volume and mix of trade promotions makes it incredibly complex to account for how effectively trade promotion spending is allocated. In our client’s case, the ERP system logged all transaction information related to shipments and a promotion planning tool was used for creating and administering promotions. However, neither system could provide the information they needed in a timely manner to make better decisions on where and how to allocate their promotion spending. This lack of timely information was a point of frustration for both the sales and marketing teams.