CDM Solution Provided by Zyme

1. B&O PLAY’s CDM SOLUTION SPEAKS VOLUMES TO PARTNER NETWORK B&O PLAY was launched in 2012 as a new brand by Bang & Olufsen, the global provider of luxury, integrated audio-video solutions and services. Offering portable products that are intuitive to use and easy to integrate into daily life whilst delivering excellent high-quality experiences, B&O PLAY's focus is on providing the contemporary design and audio experience preferred by the digital generation. www.zyme.com

2. B&O PLAY has always taken a pro-active approach to driving supply into the market. In the early stages of developing the business, the challenge was predominantly about getting product into the market and creating demand and awareness for the brand. Thanks to rapid growth and strong traction in the market, B&O PLAY now has around 30 distributors and around 5,700 selling points across the world. It recently became clear that the company needed to make sure that the growth was sustainable. It was critical that the company got an immediate grasp on its sales data in order to fully understand the channel and its needs, and ultimately sustain this early success. “Demand from the management team for greater visibility of the channel was borne out of our desire to be a data-driven company. We realised that as a lean but ambitious organisation, we needed to make the most effective use of our time and resources to maximise our potential and that making data part of our DNA was the solution.” Kasper Frederiksen, Business Analyst at B&O PLAY.

3. Realising that it had limited visibility on the day to day activities and performance of its distribution and retail channel B&O PLAY selected Zyme's cloud-based Channel Data Management (CDM) platform to improve sales data quality and reporting across its network of partners. The decision to select Zyme was made following a detailed competitive vendor review process which resulted in Zyme being rated as the most comprehensive solution provider, capable of meeting the company's specific business needs and requirements. Zyme was not only able to guarantee a robust, scalable, solution but it could also deliver an intuitive interface that could be customised to suit each user's needs. B&O PLAY also identified Zyme as the best vendor from a features and functionality perspective and the level of knowledge and thought leadership that the team was able to bring to the table regarding Channel Data Management. Frederiksen explains: “It was clear from the outset that investing in Zyme would not only provide us with an IT solution. It would also provide us with a professional partner that would share best practices and help us to get the most from our channel data. Zyme's commitment to collaboration and the continuous development of new services and solutions was also important.” Although prior to the adoption of Zyme's CDM solution, B&O PLAY's distributors were sending in monthly sell-through and inventory reports, data from the partner was not always shared by the immediate account manager to the wider team. As a result, channel management decisions were based on incomplete partner data. Zyme's CDM solution automated data collection and validation, and generated reports to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of channel marketing and sales activities, as well as managing the performance of retail partners.

4. Wanting to keep pace with consumer demands B&O PLAY considered it vital that the business could support its wider team by providing access to all available data, not only enabling them to deep-dive into specific partner data, but also to analyse patterns on a wider scale. It wanted to make product and sales decisions as close to real-time as possible and recognised that finding a long-term CDM solution that could provide a global view of the business had become essential. B&O PLAY now has access to one global dashboard which has become the foundation for creating much improved channel visibility. In addition, it has enabled the company to focus its sales team on driving sales opportunities instead of spending time gathering and analysing inconsistent data. The technology was fully embraced by the entire team and the business benefits have become clear. Accessing channel data on demand has enabled B&O PLAY to adapt its marketing outreach, as business based intelligence can now be considered when devising and evaluating the success of different campaigns. B&O PLAY is better able to evaluate the investment of its marketing dollars and how to secure improved returns from Marketing Development Funds (MDF). This was the first time that B&O PLAY was asking all of its distributors to submit their reports via one system. It was critical that any solution deployed was easy to access, use and then integrate with other downstream applications in order to ensure that any change in processes did not reduce the overall success of the initiative.

5. Deploying the Zyme solution was a significant step forward for the business. The configuration team will be able to forecast supply and demand with much improved accuracy and enhanced transparency in the channel and it will enable B&O PLAY to support existing partners and grow alongside them. B&O PLAY has no doubt that this investment will bring value to the organisation and plans are in place to include more retailers in this new data capture and sharing initiative. “We have only seen the tip of the iceberg so far,” said Frederiksen. “Having the right data and facts on the table is becoming more and more important and is particularly true in the world of audio-visual products, where technology and consumer demand moves at such a fast pace.” 240 Twin Dolphin Drive, Suite D Redwood Shores, CA 94065