Product Portfolio Optimization for Food & Beverage Companies

Companies are burdened with an ever-growing portfolio of products while customers struggle with overchoice.
Portfolio optimization is rife with pitfalls but we can guide you.

DOWNLOAD NOW:
Guide to Portfolio Optimization
for Food & Beverage Companies

Product proliferation is detrimental to food & beverage companies

Whale Curve: 20%–30% of products typically generate 300% of profits.
After years of line extensions, unfocused product and service expansion, and poor product lifecycle management practices, food and beverage businesses are drowning in too many products and services. The result: inflated costs, high levels of working capital, poor execution, and lack of focus. Customers suffer too—they’re on the receiving end of poor service levels and left to navigate an overwhelming portfolio. Getting your portfolio right is as much about keeping and growing your customers as it is about becoming a more profitable business.

Companies struggle with portfolio optimization

These exercises frequently fall short—languishing in a never-ending debate between supply chain and marketing or reduced to a ’chop the tail’ exercise with no clear benefits. While leaders can see the opportunity that would come from simplification, how to address the situation seems elusive:

How to quantify the financial benefits of complexity reduction
How to ensure that the focus of your customer reshaping is customer value
How to ensure that the business actually captures identified benefits

We are the leaders in CPG portfolio optimization

Wilson Perumal & Company is the leader in portfolio optimization, with unique methodology and deep insights, honed through many years of experience. Our difference includes:

Specialized team; more cycles per person than any other consulting firm
Robust, holistic methodology to guide companies through the process
5-facet framework assesses financial and operational impacts and incorporates customer, market, and strategic elements
Proprietary approach for quantifying complexity costs and revealing portfolio opportunities—Square Root Costing
Expertise in the analysis of opportunities, execution, and capture of benefits from portfolio optimization

Case Study

Portfolio optimization at a European food company

A privately-held European manufacturer and distributor of consumer-packaged food sought growth and profitability in the center aisles of grocery over years. Instead, its trade spend and costs-to-serve increased and its growth outlook declined. We helped them rethink their strategy, identify where they were really making money, and determine the most advantageous path forward.

Results achieved included a 7% uplift in EBIT, 18% reduction in working capital, €2M+ divestiture opportunity, and 15% fewer brands and ~30% fewer SKUs.

READ THE CASE STUDY

Let's discuss portfolio optimization at your food and beverage company

Start the conversation

“WP&C is helping us transform our business. Their insights are phenomenal!”

Dave Hoogmoed, President Land O’Lakes Purina Feed

“Wilson Perumal & Company's approach treats complexity as the enemy. Declaring war is the most direct route to an efficient, profitable enterprise. We declared war on the complexity in our portfolio, resulting in streamlined customer offerings and a more nimble business.”

Ed Lonergan, President and CEO Diversey, Inc.

“This was a quick and painless way to understand our true product profitability, and it challenges how we think about our business. I am extremely pleased with the results.”

Fernando Palacios, EVP and Chief Integrated Supply Chain Officer MillerCoors LLC

“WP&C’s insights into our portfolio, cost structure and growth drivers have changed the way we think about our business. The brand management playbooks they developed for the business will be critical to how we make decisions going forward.”

Hilliard Lombard, Managing Director Valeo Foods Group Ltd.

“I have been more than pleased with what you have been able to accomplish in this time. Beyond my expectations...Spectacular!”

Peter Benton, COO Worldwide Clinical Trials, Inc.

“Fantastic piece of work! You’ve really shed a lot of light on our business. Inmarsat will benefit enormously from your contribution and we will be using your structured thinking to guide us through the decision-making to come.”

Rupert Pearce, CEO Inmarsat plc

“If you take all six times [past projects] where we looked at this, over the past ten years, and rolled them all up together, and multiplied by ten, it would still not be as good as this work.”

Bill McNabb, CEO Vanguard Group, Inc

“Army personnel credit the collaboration between Joint Munitions Command, CAAA's higher headquarters, and consulting firm Wilson Perumal & Company for identifying areas to improve the munitions distribution process.”