Informational Interview With Clorox

I interviewed Maria Madrid who is a costs assistant manager for Clorox. These are the main things that I took away from the interview.

·         A costs assistant manager is someone who is a link between plant and corporate accountants.  In order to be a costs assistant manager, you have to have analytical skills and not just look at the costs, but be able to see the full picture and translate what that information means.

·         Over the past several years Clorox has been extremely focused on cutting costs and it order to achieve that they have been downsizing and combining roles in order to save money.

·         With CPG brands, the power of the brand name is a huge factor on how successful a company is. Without a strong brand name, people are less likely to buy your products. A strong brand name is achieved by the talent of the employees in every aspect of the company.

Informational Interview Takeaways: Tennant Company

Tennant Company Takeaways:

· The company focuses on smart investing in research opportunities to further develop new products; however, it tries to do so frugally, maintaining a spending budget.

· Tennant strives to be as environmentally friendly as possible; just this past year the business has developed a new cleaning technology called ec-H2O which is chemical-free and harmless.

· Tennant differentiates itself predominantly through manufacturing safe cleaning products versus those with harmful chemicals. Tennant’s Orbio Technologies Group is a technological development group that allows Tennant Company to maintain this competitive advantage in the CPG industry; they hope to release their next product this upcoming year.

Informational Interview Takeaways

For my informational interview, I contacted Mr. James Witmer from Earth Sun Moon Trading Company. He answered many questions in great detail, and here are three takeaways I gained from our conversation:

· Creating a “presence” in a specific market is what leads to sales. By recreating two very “UN-sophisticated websites” Mr. Witmer broadened the company’s clientele; the new sites are easier to maneuver about and explain products with more detail.

· Privacy policies are very important, especially to online stores that gather information from customers. Earth Sun Moon once had a “We never share anything, period” policy in effect. But as more and more direct-mail companies modernized and shared/rented information, Earth Sun Moon Trading Company tweaked its policy to do the same, while still allowing customers to refuse them the right to do so.

· I most revered Mr. Witmer’s explanation of Earth Sun Moon’s company culture. The owner/president receives respect only because he gives it to every single one of his employees; Mr. Witmer stated that the president “believes that using a human being in any way is immoral, and so he insists that the company/employee relationship be win-win.” He instills that belief by keeping his doors open for any questions and talking one-on-one daily with his employees. As a result, those workers have a higher morale and want to give customers the same feeling.

Is the Consumer Products Industry "Losing Its Glow"?

According to McKinsey & Company, the CPG industry seems to be doing well to the naked eye. However, it might be "losing its glow". After all the expansion in past years, this industry is not growing as rapidly in comparison. Mark McGrath, director of the Chicago office of McKinsey & Company says, "'Since the late '90s the industry has not matched its earlier strides in value, quality and convenience."'

Can this be true? Are all the new innovations we've seen while studying this industry not be helping the CPG industry as a whole? As a well-known global investment firm, should we trust them? I say yes. If you think about it, there have not been large innovations such as frozen food for a long time. Sure, CPG is making more safe, eco-friendly products, but is this enough?

http://mckinsey.com/clientservice/consumerpackagedgoods/insight.asp
http://www.mckinsey.com/aboutus/

Kimberly-Clark

Founded over 130 years ago, Kimberly-Clark is one of the most successful consumer product companies in the world. Operating in more than 35 countries, and with goods being distributed in more than 150 countries, Kimberly-Clark brought in $19.1 billion last year. Kimberly-Clark is the inventor of five of their eight major consumer product categories including the facial tissue, paper towels, toilet paper on a roll, feminine pads, and disposable training pads.  Every day, 1.3 billion people consume their brands such as Kleenex, Scott, Andrex, Huggies, Pull-Ups, Kotex.

Kimberly-Cark drives their growth by enhancing health, hygiene, and the well-being of people every day. Today the company adheres to their four core values and beliefs of being accountable, authentic, innovative, and caring. As a global company, they are “committed to cultivating a fair, respectful and engaging work environment that inspires our diverse global team to thrive professionally and contribute to the communities where we operate.” Kimberly-Clark has been a huge competitor in the consumer products industry and their growth and innovation over the past 20 years have truly impacted our world and the everyday life as we know it.

Sun & Earth, Inc

Established in 2006, Sun & Earth, Inc. has dedicated their business's pursuits on providing consumers with natural cleaners made from coconut and orange oils; the majority of national brands use harsh, man-made chemicals. Sun & Earth, Inc. hopes to reach customers who are sensitive to the chemicals in other cleaners, as well as those who are eco-friendly.

They promise that their products are as good as, or better than, the leading brands in the consumer products industry. They are free of "petroleum based cleaners, chlorine, phosphates, dyes and perfumes" (Sun & Earth, Inc.), which can harm health.

http://www.sunandearth.com/ProductsPage.aspx

Consumer trends are very important for CPG companies to take into account for they affect companies' marketing strategies. Consumer demographics are a key trend. For example, according to US census data on NetAdvantage, the age bracket demographic including 45-65 year-olds will make up 26% of the nation’s population by 2015. Companies are realizing this, and they are more strongly directing their marketing goals towards this specific age bracket. Perhaps businesses will emphasize skin repair and beauty products over other personal care products.

CPG companies also pay close attention to trends in household income. For example, while in 2008 20.5% of households made $100,000 or more, in 1970 only 7.7% of households made this much money and 22.6% of households made between $50,000 and $75,000. CPG companies must pay attention to these numbers when formulating marketing plans and target markets for their marketing. If more people have or are predicted to have more income in a particular year, companies must adjust accordingly.

http://www.netadvantage.standardandpoors.com/NASApp/NetAdvantage/showIndustrySurvey.do?code=hnd