Stéphanie Teetaert 0:00:03.6:

Good afternoon. First of all, I'm very happy to hear that in a few months, perhaps a year, I will be able to ask my system in the morning instead of sending 25 mails to people, 'What will be my forecast of October,' and I was, indeed, thinking, what will it be in November? So fantastic to hear that AI will definitely help us in a positive way. I'm at the Pietercil Group now for four years, and my background is not like most of you in the room, about technology. Honestly, I'm quite poor at that, but what my job is, is to make sure that, together with customers, we create value for the business. I have been mainly in commercial roles in the past for many companies and joined Pietercil four years ago. Now, who is Pietercil? Of course, we are not a big name, but I must say in FMCG we are, in the Benelux and in France, really a well-known player. We are a family-owned business, so in business for 75 years, rooted in Belgium, but then gone to many acquisitions to become a leader in FMCG and expanding with new business pillars. For now, we have two business pillars at Pietercil. First of all, the historical one for which I am responsible is distribution of very well-known brands.

Stéphanie Teetaert 0:01:28.9:

Like you can see on the right side, Lavazza, Tropicana, Del Monte, Scholl, Old El Paso. I hope you all have them at home and taste them every day. Next to that, we have also a business production business commercializing Mediterranean fresh products like olive dips and antipasti, so a really different business type. Then, the brokerage, but that's really the ambition of the group, is expanding and looking for synergies together. We are in four countries, a €300 million business, and next to that, also 300 people on board combined. Now, when I came in at Pietercil, Pietercil is quite a complex business with 90 brands on board, and many retailers in many countries. One of the big challenges we had - we are a business, also, a distributor business - it's not a heavy margin business. You should be very careful in how you spend the money. We are also more a service business, meaning that people make the difference. A big question to me was looking… We have a simple business model. We buy products, and we sell them, but once you go a bit more deeper, it's very complicated. We work with brands who all have their own vision on how they want to collaborate, from very transparent to very simple.

Stéphanie Teetaert 0:03:06.6:

So, meaning that, in the end, we have 90 trader models with them, which we all need to understand, analyze, steer to make sure that we stay profitable. On the other hand, we have the retailers, [?Delhaize 0:03:20.5], Albert Heijn, whoever, who also operate in a very different way, depending on the country where they are situated in. We go from very simple trader models with them and money we spend on a net basis, one price to very complicated trade terms models, especially in France, all that making for us that - if you want to be very clear on what money do I make on what brand at what customer - it was nearly impossible. That was, especially in the world of today, something we really needed to understand, first of all, in order to be able to then develop action plans. That's where, as Pietercil said, we really need to build a trader model, and also tooling to help us make decisions. Yes, we worked basically with thousands, or perhaps not thousands, but hundreds of Excels in the company, and the knowledge was in the heads of the people because, of course, you can't capture everything in an Excel. Very time-consuming because every time you need to work in Excel, you need to recopy in another one, you make errors people don't understand.

Stéphanie Teetaert 0:04:36.7:

It goes to data management. You make errors again. That's where we said we'll go to a new system, what we call the trade terms model system, and yes, how will we do that? We are looking for tooling. Will we buy on-the-shelf? We worked already with Anaplan, and we saw immediately, together with Deloitte, the opportunity to leverage the capabilities we already had and introduce, again, Anaplan in trade terms management because, in the end, our experience was already quite positive. We really leveraged on that experience to really go beyond and introduce Anaplan in trade terms management. Now, as I said, we work already for some years with Anaplan now. It started, really, at the basis a few years ago with demand planning. We really wanted to have an integrated demand planning in our company, one view of what the sales forecast would be, not one towards the customers, not one internal, but one basis of really sales forecasting and demand planning. Then, later on, we realized - and we had that already in mind - that this could serve also our financial planning, which was very static before that. We did it twice a year, and again, good news, we copied data from A to B to get, of course, a static report on what the forecast, the financial planning would be.

Stéphanie Teetaert 0:06:12.7:

Again, that we decided to change, and we built a budget tool in Anaplan, which the good news was took the volumes already out of the demand planning. So, no need again to - how do you say that - copy or introduce new volumes? No, we had the basis in the demand planning. Of course, financial planning is volumes time price. As many retailers say, price, that was the missing piece, and that's why trade term management and the trade term tool has been built also in Anaplan to really connect the volumes, the price to a financial planning. That's really the big story, not only I would say in terms of gaining efficiency and one view, but also gaining benefits for people because it's not only for us, the management team, but everybody in the company at his level or at his scope can have this view. The trade terms model is really sitting, I would say, in the middle of many applications. There, where before we had static Excels, now we all introduce both the trade terms models with our brands, other trade terms models with our retailers in one tooling, which allows us, at one view, to have a full view from gross to net what our pricing, our values are, and what our margin is.

Stéphanie Teetaert 0:07:46.1:

Moreover, during the negotiations, whether it is with a brand or with a retailer, we can simulate. Our account managers will simulate their negotiations in the trade terms tool, and also, we included decision flows in that because, of course, you don't want people to overspend. You want them to make sound negotiations, good outcome in negotiations, so also their approval flows put into the trade terms tool today. Of course, that's connected again to the budget tool, but also to many reporting tools within the Anaplan context, of course. Now, of course, doing that process, I think we started somewhere two years ago; it has been a huge work to get there. I'm very lucky, also, that we had somewhere Deloitte helping us in getting the overview and giving us the right steps to follow because it's not only about having a tool, it is also about having a vision, having clear processes, clear governance in place. That's the full scope we took, and where we started step-by-step until we launched now the trade terms tool a few months ago. That's what we did step-by-step over the last two years, but every time again with the same objective, to have one view and really to be able to make fast decisions in the benefit of the profits.

Stéphanie Teetaert 0:09:29.1:

Where are we today? We are in the full implementation phase, so that means that we have still a lot to do, and people are really sweating on it for now, but yes, that's always when you have change. It takes some work to implement. First of all, the good news is, we got rid of all the Excels, all the information sitting everywhere around in the company. We have now one vision of the truth in the same way for all levels of the company. That's the first thing. Then, it's in real time because if you have a statis system, yes, it needs a little bit of time every time again to get an updated view. Here, during the negotiations, at every day, we will be able to see where are we in the negotiations with every customer. That's a big advantage. Before, I needed to send out a lot of mails and Excels, again, to get feedback and a report to me. Last, but not least, it is really also timesaving by the fact that you reduce the input time. In many systems, you give people time to analyze, and I really recognize the message I heard also in the video. That's really the goal behind, and that's also what we really want that people have as a benefit by using the trade terms tool.

Stéphanie Teetaert 0:10:51.9:

Of course, change is not easy, and every time, again, it's what we said also today, every time, again, you realize the same thing. Of course, you can have the best systems in the world, but first of all, your data should be really good, and that's very important. The good news is the fact that you have a one click view, you immediately also see when there is a disconnect in your data, which was not the case before, so that's already a big advantage. If you look at the company, how we work today, we really realized that change is complicated. It is, I think, perhaps the biggest underestimation, especially in the sales context, that when you want to integrate tools, you need to also accompany the change in your company. That's what we, every time, perhaps underestimate, but when you do it well and you explain to everybody in your company what will be the benefit of working that way, it is really helping them and motivating them to make this change. For me, the two things is correctness of data is a key thing, and then really managing the change in your company. This is a bit of story in a nutshell. I can tell much more, but that's the story of Pietercil, and happy to answer a few questions. [applause]

Unknown speaker 0:12:41.6:

First of all, I want to thank you because I had a meeting earlier this year with a very large company explaining specifically that they have this problem, so I want to introduce you to someone and explain this once again. So, you have started now. What are the first reactions? I mean, the sales team now suddenly becomes also users of the Anaplan platform, so what's the feedback because they were probably used to have freedom to do a little calculation in Excel, and now they are forced to work in the system, so how do they react?

Stéphanie Teetaert 0:13:14.4:

Yes, and especially with salespeople, and I'm one of them, so I can… There was a lot of fear that this would get more complicated and take more time. Of course, yes, in the first step, you need to move data, especially when you have it in Excel, you need to move your data. Already, they were quite surprised in that the system is quite fast and efficient and also user-friendly, so for them, that was already a big advantage. Then, also showing the picture of the future that they will be able to analyze profitability that also integrate a retailer data into that, because that's the next level where… We showed where we are today, but we still have much bigger plans behind that.

Unknown speaker 0:13:59.1:

I like that always.

Stéphanie Teetaert 0:13:59.3:

The fact that they really see what this can benefit to them is encouraging them today to really start using it. Of course, yes, the decision flow, that's perhaps a bit more complicated thing where, yes, they feel more controlled than before. On the other hand, it should really [?fasten also 0:14:20.0] decisions because, before, when they wanted a decision, they needed to ask too many people to get validation, so yes, that's where we are today. So, in the middle of the change, but with very nice perspectives.

Unknown speaker 0:14:33.5:

Thank you very much. Thanks for the testimony, and if any questions for Stéphanie during the break…

Stéphanie Teetaert 0:14:39.4:

It's a pleasure.

Unknown speaker 0:14:39.5:

You can find her somewhere on the floor, I guess, so thanks a lot! [applause]