South Africa, June 22 -- Despite the scale of this investment, 61% of FMCG manufacturers report difficulty executing planned promotions, and 75% say they struggle to manage modern trade complexity altogether.

A promotional agreement negotiated at head office level does not automatically translate into consistent execution at store level. Prices may not be updated correctly and promotional periods may run shorter, or longer, than agreed.

Also, an anticipated spike in demand that a promotion is designed to generate, can be the very thing that causes an out-of-stock situation, if stock planning has not accounted for it.

Perhaps most striking is the visibility gap: according to industry research, only around 9.5% of FMCG companies are curr...