Growzz is a software platform designed to help consumer goods companies and retailers run their Joint Business Planning process together.
A supplier typically has to do 95% of the work to build a Joint Business Plan.
Growzz helps the supplier build the Joint Business Plan in a meaningful way for the retailer using the retailer's data. It helps the retailer see plans in a consistent way from very different types of suppliers.
Ultimately, Growzz can be integrated into both the supplier's and retailer's systems to transform effectiveness and efficiency in collaborative planning, though when you first use Growzz, it will run as a standalone system.
The financial impact of the Joint Business Plan on both the supplier and the retailer is very significant. A supplier will typically put forward investments worth 10% to 40% of its P&L, and the retailer needs these investments to support margin delivery.
Growzz helps the supplier and retailer understand what financial objectives the plan needs to deliver versus current performance, what activities need to be put into place to deliver the financial targets, and what supplier investments support the plan.
In Growzz, you build your plan on top of what we call a true base volume.
Even if you didn't introduce any new products or run any promotions in the coming fiscal year, you would still sell a certain amount of product.
Growzz contains a forecast of how much of each product will sell week by week across the retailer's stores, without a plan even being in place, and this is the true base volume. So when you build a plan in Growzz, you can see the incremental value the plan creates for the supplier and retailer.
Once you have created your draft plan in Growzz, you can submit it to the retailer for review and comment. The retailer does not see your plan until you have submitted it, so you can play around with different ideas as much as you like to figure out the optimal draft plan.
There's then an iteration of back and forth between the supplier and retailer to agree on the plan in Growzz, before the plan is locked.
The locking of a plan is not a legally binding agreement. It's the best view of what the plan should look like, but everyone knows it will change for all sorts of reasons.
To support variations to plans, once a plan has been locked, a full copy is saved in Growzz and a new copy opens so you can create in-year adjustments to the plan before the plans are finalized 8 to 12 weeks before execution instore and online and loaded into the retailer's and supplier's contracting and operational systems.
Once finalized plans have been executed in Growzz, you will ultimately be able, for the first time, to review execution performance versus the originally agreed plans.