Between internal meetings, discussions with distributors, and field visits, a Regional Manager's weeks often fly by. Yet, one question regularly arises when planning trips: where should I go first? Should we visit warehouses where sales seem to be slowing down? Go and support those that are already performing well? Or prioritize strategic partners? In practice, many decisions are still made based on intuition or partial information. And that's precisely where the difficulty b

For a Key Account Manager (KAM), negotiation is never an end in itself. Signing an agreement, validating an action plan or securing volumes only has value if all of this then translates into concrete actions on the ground. And that's often where things get complicated. Between headquarters and the sales force, intentions are good, but execution can be diluted. Information sometimes flows poorly, figures aren't always consistent, and everyone operates with their own interpret

For a long time, Category Management in Foodservice was built around a simple principle: to offer a coherent and efficient assortment to the greatest number of people. This approach has proven its worth. But today, it is reaching its limits. The foodservice market has fragmented. Uses have multiplied. Expectations vary greatly depending on the type of establishment, geographical area, or time of consumption. Faced with this complexity, managing a category without fine segment

A Comex report is never a simple exercise in reporting. This is a key moment where the Sales Management team puts its credibility , its understanding of the market, and its ability to drive growth on the line. And yet, for many sales departments, this preparation remains a laborious process. The figures are there, but incomplete. Trends are perceived, but difficult to quantify. The discussion sometimes focuses more on the reliability of the data than on the decisions to be

A successful meeting isn't decided during the exchange itself. It's decided well beforehand, during the preparation phase! And for many Regional Managers , this is where the problem lies. Between retrieving exports, cross-referencing files, and verifying figures, preparing for a meeting can quickly become time-consuming. A lot of time invested… for a sometimes limited impact on the discussion. The good news is that an effective meeting doesn't need more numbers. It needs the

As a Foodservice Key Account Manager , your mission is clear: to manage strategic accounts, secure business and build sustainable growth with your distributors. In reality, your decisions are based on data. Or rather… on data . Multiple, heterogeneous, sometimes contradictory. One distributor sends a very detailed file, another a summary report, a third nothing at all. The formats vary, the time periods don't align, the definitions change. In the end, you get pieces of the

For a Category Manager, product assortment is a strategic lever. It is this factor that determines performance, customer satisfaction, and credibility with distributors. Yet, in many organizations, its management still relies on an overly general view of sales . We know what's coming out. We know what is progressing or regressing. But we don't always know for whom . And that's precisely where the problem lies. When an “average” assortment masks very different realities An a

For a long time, Excel was the default tool for sales management. Flexible, accessible, reassuring. Even today, in many Foodservice business units, it remains at the heart of reporting, consolidations and performance analyses. The problem is not Excel itself. The problem is what it really costs your organization : in time, reliability, and decision-making capacity. Excel gives the illusion of control… but can create friction in your sales department At first glance, everythi

Being a Regional Manager means constantly making trade-offs. Where should you focus your efforts? Which depot should you support first? Which situation requires immediate action rather than simple monitoring? In reality, these decisions are still too often made with partial visibility, sometimes delayed, and rarely consistent from one depot to another. We receive the numbers after the fact. We reconstruct situations retrospectively. We discover certain problems when they are

As a Key Account Manager, you negotiate key commercial agreements every year. Promotions, innovations, highlights, range expansions… on paper, the action plans are clear. The objectives too. But once the agreements are signed, one question systematically arises: What is actually being implemented on the ground, and what is the business impact? The daily life of a Key Account Manager: many agreements, little visibility on the ground In the foodservice industry, the complexity

Running a Foodservice business today is no longer just about achieving revenue targets. It's about understanding where performance really comes from , what weakens it, and above all, how to activate it sustainably. For many Sales Departments, one observation comes up regularly: the data exists, but the overall view is lacking. The figures are there, scattered across disparate tools, files, and reports. And when a quick decision is needed, the data does not always inform the

Faced with a rapidly changing agri-food market, overseas manufacturers are now facing a major challenge: fully exploiting their commercial data to accelerate their development. It is in this context that Perspect'Îles Outre-mer and KaryonFood announce a strategic collaboration combining field expertise and the power of data.   A natural encounter between strategic vision and technology This collaboration is based on a shared observation: traditional sell-out analysis solut

As a Category Manager, you manage assortments, launches and promotional plans with a clear objective: to create sustainable value for the category , for both the distributor and the end user. But one question systematically arises after each activation or innovation: 👉 Did it really work? In many organizations, the answer still relies primarily on sell-in . However, when it comes to assessing the true relevance of a promotion or the success of a launch, out-of-warehouse sa

For a Key Account Manager, anticipation makes all the difference. Anticipating a stock-out before it damages the customer relationship. Anticipating an opportunity before it is captured by a competitor. Yet in the field, many signals arrive too late. When a stock-out becomes visible, it has already cost sales. When growth is confirmed, the window of opportunity is sometimes already closed. What if those signals already existed in your data… but weren’t being used? When accoun

For a Regional Manager, the week is often shaped by travel, depot meetings, exchanges with headquarters… and preparation time that far exceeds what is reasonable. Excel files to compile, figures to consolidate, follow-up emails to retrieve missing data. Before even setting foot in the depot, a valuable share of commercial time has already been consumed. And too often, everyone’s energy — including that of field teams — is spent on preparation rather than on the impact of the

Understanding the True Performance of Your Products: a Daily Challenge For a Category Manager , measuring product performance is not just about tracking volumes sold. Between differences in distribution channels, varying promotional mechanics, and reporting delays, it becomes difficult to get a consistent, homogeneous view of the Foodservice market. As a result, you know where you sell—but not always how your products are performing compared to others. And without this compa

For a Sales Department, managing performance should never feel like a constant reconciliation exercise. And yet, in many agri-food organizations, the reality is quite different. On one side, sell-in figures coming from the ERP. On the other, sell-out data that is partial or inconsistent depending on the retailer. Add to this panel data, financial data, sometimes logistics indicators… all in different formats, with misaligned timelines and sometimes contradictory interpretati

Launching an innovation is good. Proving its success is better. In Foodservice, innovations are plentiful—but not all of them find their market. A new product can appeal to distributors at launch without ever becoming a long-term part of assortments. For the Category Manager, the challenge is clear: quickly identify whether an innovation is delivering on its promises. But how can you know this without waiting several months for reporting? The key lies in regular, granular a

Launching a Foodservice innovation is always a gamble. New product, new format, new recipe, new end-user target… On paper, everything seems aligned. Negotiations are wrapped up, volumes are shipped to the warehouse, and the listing is secured. Then comes the question every Category Manager dreads: is this innovation really working in the market? Without sell-out data, the answer remains unclear. And this blind spot makes future decision-making significantly more difficult. F

When you manage a region, you quickly learn to “read” the field: long-standing relationships, mutual trust, and steady volumes can create the feeling that you truly know your most strategic deposits. Yet as soon as sell-out data is analyzed, a very different picture of the market emerges. The deposits you assume are strong aren’t always so. Those you believe to be fragile sometimes hold untapped potential. And between these two extremes lies a whole gray area: performances