CGT 2009 Visionaries - Tom Torralbas, ConAgra Foods

Influential Executives Driving Extraordinary Change in the CG Industry

Vision in Action

As the director of category leadership, Tom Torralbas oversaw the development and implementation of ConAgra Foods' Gold Store program for channels. Gold Store is a metric now used within the company to measure retailer performance against "category driving" retail conditions. "Channels are often overlooked due to data limitations and class-of-trade differences," says Torralbas. "However, we were able to build a scorecard around shelving and assortment, set meaningful objectives and complete implementation this past fiscal year." Gold Store performances has since been incorporated into the channels team's management performance metrics.

Future Endeavors

Torralbas understands that collaboration has become an imperative for winning at the shelf. That's why he has set his sights on leveraging insights automation to provide deeper, more meaningful insights to ConAgra sales teams and retail partners.

"ConAgra has a wealth of information sources, however, access is often slow and guarded due to limited resources from our data providers," says Torralbas. "We are leveraging sales automation platforms (such as Interactive Edge's XP3) to increase the access and visibility, which will allow ConAgra's category management team to leverage more meaningful insights as we further engage
with our retailer partners and sales teams."

What Is the Biggest Industry Challenge in the Next Five Years?

"Retailers and manufacturers need to be positioned to react quickly to the shifting consumer needs. The ability to quickly identify macro consumer shifts, recognize the drivers, develop solutions and implement then efficiently is critical. This will undoubtedly separate the winners from the losers in consumer goods," says Torralbas. ConAgra's insights automation initiative is critical to meeting these objectives as it is expected to drastically improve its ability to quickly access, interpret and leverage insights to develop timely category management strategies.

Read the article online at Consumer Goods Technology, June 2009