Vistex Blog - Where it all adds up

Industry insights from Vistex experts.

category management strategy featured image

Category Management Strategy 7 Insights Needed Before Annual Planning Begins

Category managers preparing next year’s plan should lead with 7 questions designed to evaluate category performance, promotion effectiveness, retailer results, and category growth planning.

September 2, 2026

automotive royalty management software featured image

Automotive Incentive Management: A Complete Guide to Managing Incentives, Rebates, and Pricing Programs

Automotive rights and royalty management softwLearn what automotive incentive management is, why it matters, and how manufacturers can optimize rebates, dealer incentives, pricing programs, and profitability.are transforms a complex, risk-prone process into a streamlined workflow that reduces error, saves time, and improves revenue.

August 28, 2026

royalty management system featured image

Music Catalogs Underperform Their Value. A Yield Engine Recovers It.

Optimize your music catalog with a music catalog yield engine to recover royalties, improve rights visibility, increase catalog value, and drive revenue.

August 27, 2026

The Margin Gap: Why Wholesale Distribution Profit Margin Is Harder to Protect Than You Think

Margin erosion in wholesale distribution is due to hidden process failures, pricing delays, and limited visibility. Learn how leading distributors close the margin gap.

August 21, 2026

How Fashion Brands Can Build an AI-Powered Pricing Strategy

AI pricing strategy in fashion retail is evolving. Discover how to optimize profits with dynamic, data-driven pricing models that outperform competitors.

August 12, 2026

Sales Incentives and Enablement in Wholesale Distribution: Why Profitable Growth Remains Elusive

When sales incentives and enablement aren't aligned, margin follows. See how leading distributors close the gap and make profitable selling the default.

August 6, 2026

retailer scorecard consumer products manufacturers featured image

Which Retailers Drive Profitable Growth? A Framework For Retail Account Performance

Learn how consumer products manufacturers evaluate retailer profitability, promotion performance, trade spend effectiveness, and deduction management with a retailer scorecard framework.

August 4, 2026

ai competitor price monitoring featured image

How Fashion Brands Can Use AI for Competitor Price Monitoring

What is AI competitor price monitoring? Learn how fashion brands track competitors, analyze pricing trends, and optimize profitability.

July 30, 2026

If AI Can’t Find Your Content, Your Streaming Rights Strategy Is Why

AI-mediated content discovery is exposing the gaps in how media companies license and manage streaming rights. Learn why streaming rights strategy now determines content visibility, discoverability, and revenue potential.

July 30, 2026

trade spend management strategies cpg growth featured image

Trade Spend Management Strategies That Drive Profitable Growth For Consumer Products Manufacturers

Learn how consumer products manufacturers can improve trade spend management through better forecasting, promotion analysis, accrual visibility, and cross-functional alignment to increase profitability and maximize trade ROI.

July 29, 2026

what is demand forecasting consumer products featured image

What is Demand Forecasting in Consumer Products? Manufacturers and Retailers Can’t Afford to Get it Wrong

Learn what demand forecasting is in consumer products, common forecasting challenges, AI’s role, and how manufacturers improve accuracy and profitability.

July 17, 2026

Your Music Royalty Management System Wasn’t Built for Streaming Scale

Music royalty management wasn’t built for streaming scale. Find out how pro-rata models, metadata gaps, and coexistence create revenue leakage, and what fixes it.

July 16, 2026

Retail Pricing Optimization featured image

Retail Pricing Optimization: The Cost of Treating Every Channel the Same

Looking for retail pricing optimization success? Explore the best strategies to find the ideal price for every product and drive sustainable growth.

July 15, 2026

medical device bundling gtn compliance featured image

Medical Device Bundling: Optimize Revenue & Compliance

Medical device bundling creates GtN complexity that most companies can't see until it's too late. Learn how to manage Gross-to-Net, compliance, and margin across device bundles before execution, not after.

July 8, 2026

Turning Channel Spend Into ROI With AI

Learn how AI helps high tech companies improve channel spend ROI, better channel data management, predictive modeling, and real-time performance insights.

July 8, 2026

Your Licensing Royalty Structure Was Built for a Market That No Longer Exists

Your licensing royalty structure wasn't built for blind boxes, trading cards, or viral cross-brand deals. Find out exactly where it breaks down and what to do about it.

June 29, 2026

Pharma Europe Margin Optimization Gross-to-Net featured image

Pharma Margin Optimization Starts With Gross-to-Net Control

Discover how European pharma companies are closing the gap between list price and retained revenue through Gross-to-Net (GtN) visibility, before margin erosion shows up in the numbers.

June 26, 2026

You’re Sitting on a Media Content Rights Gold Mine. Without Rights and Royalties AI, It’s a Very Expensive Filing Cabinet.

Discover how rights and royalties AI is turning rights and royalties systems from compliance tools into strategic growth engines, unlocking untapped content value at scale.

June 18, 2026

pharma contract pricing bid strategy featured image

Why AI Is Essential To Pharma Contract Pricing and Bid Strategy

Discover how AI gives pharma pricing and bid teams the visibility to evaluate contract decisions across margin, compliance, and reimbursement before execution moves faster than the business can see.

June 17, 2026

Why Automotive OEMs Need Rights And Royalty Management Software

Automotive rights and royalty management software transforms a complex, risk-prone process into a streamlined workflow that reduces error, saves time, and improves revenue.

June 16, 2026

automotive aftermarket revenue management feature image

Aftermarket Pricing Shouldn’t Be An Afterthought

Explore automotive aftermarket revenue management and how OEMs use data, pricing, and incentives to improve margins and future-proof operations.

June 8, 2026

annual operating plan process consumer products growth feature image

Turn Your Consumer Products Annual Operating Plan into a Continuous Growth Engine

Modernize your annual operating plan with a connected framework for pricing, trade promotion, and cross-functional alignment in consumer products.

June 4, 2026

implement agentic ai trade promotion management feature image

A Practical Roadmap for Agentic AI in Trade Promotion Management

Learn how to implement agentic AI in trade promotion management with a phased roadmap to improve trade spend efficiency, execution, and CPG revenue growth

June 3, 2026

royalty management ip audits feature image

Licensing Economics And Royalty Intelligence: The End Of The Spreadsheet Era

Spreadsheets can't govern modern licensing. Discover how royalty management software delivers audit-readiness and continuous licensing revenue control.

June 3, 2026

agentic ai trade promotion management feature image

How is Agentic AI Redefining Trade Promotion Management for CPG Teams?

Learn how agentic AI transforms trade promotion management from predictive insight to real-time execution for smarter, faster revenue growth for CPG manufacturers.

May 13, 2026

How Facility-Level Pricing Optimization Enables Margin-Driving Decisions

Learn why AI in foodservice strategy fails without facility-level pricing optimization. Discover how leading manufacturers turn fragmented data into margin-driving decisions through adaptive revenue management.

May 13, 2026

NAB Show 2026 Media Transformation AI featured image

NAB Show 2026: Media Transformation and the Shift to Proven AI Outcomes

The media industry transformation has arrived. Discover how AI, rights management, and integrated platforms are rewriting the rules of content monetization.

May 5, 2026

tariffs imports affect fashion retail pricing margins featured image

Fashion Industry Trends 2026: Protecting Margins in a Low-Growth Market

Explore fashion industry trends 2026 and how AI pricing strategies help brands protect margins, optimize promotions, and manage inventory.

April 29, 2026

AI retail pricing strategy featured image

Prime Day Starts in April

Discover how AI retail pricing strategy helps retailers avoid margin loss, manage pricing history, and plan smarter promotions for peak seasons.

April 17, 2026

streamline royalty management featured image

The Connected Licensing Ecosystem Advantage

Licensing organizations lose time, visibility, and growth opportunities when data lives in disconnected systems. A connected licensing ecosystem unifies data, automates royalty management, and improves collaboration with partners. The result is faster decisions, stronger licensee relationships, and new revenue insights across the entire licensing portfolio.

April 16, 2026

Most Distributors Aren't Ready for AI — And It’s Costing Them

AI doesn’t fix operational gaps in wholesale distribution; it magnifies them. Distributors that first align leadership, strengthen data governance, and target clear ROI use cases are the ones turning AI from hype into measurable profitability, margin protection, sales insight, and competitive advantage.

April 9, 2026

The Music Catalog Intelligence Gap

The latest music consumption data shows jazz over-indexing on physical, children's content dominating video, and non-English repertoire leading global charts. Most music companies aren't connecting those signals to their catalogs. AI can close that gap with clean data, strong rights management, and catalog intelligence driving the strategy.

April 6, 2026

AI in High Tech Channel Management: Why Operational Readiness Matters

AI in high-tech channel management depends on unified data and operational infrastructure. Discover how to optimize incentives, visibility, and partner performance.

April 6, 2026

Revenue Management In Retail Is Not About Raising Prices

Retail revenue management should focus on net revenue, not price increases. See how better data and execution improve margin and performance.

March 31, 2026

The Hidden Cost Of Outdated Incentive Processes

Modernize your automotive incentive strategy to reduce revenue leakage, improve transparency, and protect margins in a digital retail era.

March 31, 2026

profit sharing agreements featured image

How Life Sciences Leaders Use Profit-Sharing Agreements to Manage Risk and Drive Growth

How are life sciences leaders using profit-sharing agreements to manage risk and drive growth? Explore the strategy, structures, and capabilities required.

March 30, 2026

The Future Of Generic Pharmaceuticals: 2 Trends Reshaping The Industry (Part 2)

Explore how contract manufacturing and direct-to-patient models give generic pharmaceutical manufacturers competitive advantages and pathways to sustainable growth.

March 18, 2026

generic drug manufacturers featured image

The Future Of Generic Pharmaceuticals: 3 Trends Reshaping The Industry (Part 1)

Discover how margin pressure, complex generics, and biosimilars are reshaping generic pharmaceutical manufacturing. Learn strategies to restore profitability.

March 18, 2026

Drive More Accurate Demand Forecasts. Integrate Fragmented Financial and Commercial Data

Learn how CPG finance teams can improve demand forecasting accuracy through data digitization, better trade data, and integrated finance operations.

March 9, 2026

Disruptor or Disruptee? You build AI. But Do You Run On It?

Disruptor or disruptee? Learn how OEMs, ECMs, and software manufacturers operationalize AI across pricing, incentives, and revenue management to eliminate the innovation tax.

March 3, 2026

Agentic AI Ascends the Media Throne

As media distribution expands across formats, platforms and audiences, human workflows collapse under the weight. Agentic AI emerges as a scalable way to orchestrate versioning, localization, rights and monetization — turning fragmented complexity into real-time, compliant growth that outpaces competitors and unlocks dormant value at scale.

February 25, 2026

joint business planning process improve trade promotion roi featured image

How to Build an Effective Joint Business Planning Process Driving Alignment and Trade Promotion ROI

Data, predictive analytics, and technology enable a Joint Business Planning process that drives trade promotion ROI and retailer performance for CPG manufacturers.

February 25, 2026

Your Wholesale Pricing Lab (Part 2 of 2)

Wholesale pricing simulations let distributors test strategies, predict margin impact and set sales guardrails before quotes reach customers. From fast what-if scenarios to AI-driven modeling, a pricing lab turns assumptions into insights, aligns teams, and creates a culture of more rapid, intelligent and profitable decision-making.

February 13, 2026

CPG joint business planning featured image

How CPG Manufacturers Build Stronger, More Profitable Retail Partnerships with Joint Business Planning

See the new joint business planning paradigm for CPG manufacturers, including roles, KPIs, market forces, and how to build more profitable retailer partnerships for revenue growth management.

February 11, 2026

heritage intellectual property feature image

The Modern Rules of Heritage Intellectual Property

Evergreen franchises dominate entertainment licensing, but most lose millions they’ll never recover. Manual processes, outdated contracts and siloed data quietly drain profitability. Data-driven licensors centralize rights, automate financial operations and enable real-time intelligence — turning heritage intellectual property from reactive risk management into strategic competitive advantage.

February 10, 2026

unclaimed music royalties featured image

Hundreds of Millions in Music Revenue. Zero Rightful Owners.

The music industry holds $424 million in unmatched royalties — a black box that rewards established publishers at the expense of emerging creators. Metadata chaos, registration gaps and siloed systems create billions in lost income. AI-powered matching, mandated transparency and data discipline can recover revenue that rightsholders are forfeiting.

February 2, 2026

ASP reporting and pricing operations featured image

CMS And The New ASP Rules: What Pharma Manufacturers Need To Know

CMS’s new ASP rules tighten documentation and transparency. Learn how pharma manufacturers can strengthen compliance and prepare for these changes.

January 22, 2026

The Tip of the Iceberg

Gone are the days when superior engineering and horsepower ruled. Today, vehicles are becoming more about code, connectivity, and continuous upgrades.

January 14, 2026

ai trade promotion optimization forecast accuracy featured image

From Cloudy To Clear: How AI-Driven Trade Promotion Forecasting Leads To Better Results

Trade promotions are one of the largest line items for consumer products manufacturers, with P&L often accounting for up to 20% of gross sales.

January 14, 2026

cpg trade spend reconciliation liabilities accruals featured image

How to close the books on trade spend liability

Year-end trade spend reconciliation is a critical and challenging process for CPG manufacturers. As Q4 promotional activity peaks, Finance teams must accurately calculate outstanding retailer liabilities, align trade accruals with actual promotional spend, and identify budget variances before closing the books.

January 12, 2026

wholesale pricing simulations featured image

Your Wholesale Pricing Lab (Part 1 of 2)

In wholesale pricing, every decision is an experiment, whether you realize it or not. Adjust a discount here, shift a cost assumption there, and ripple effects move through margin, volume and customer perception.

January 9, 2026

Your Wholesale Pricing Lab (Part 1 of 2)

January 9, 2026

The Media Content Blind Spot Killing Your Margins

The streaming wars have shifted again. What began as a content-acquisition arms race has evolved into a sophisticated margin-optimization chess match, where every licensing dollar must work harder than before.

January 5, 2026

It's The Year Of The Fire Horse. Speed Wins.

The lunar new year brings forth the fire horse, and its symbol of passion, speed and unstoppable momentum. According to the Chinese Zodiac, it’s the perfect time for bold action and rapid transformation.

January 5, 2026

Your Wholesale Pricing Needs The Right Playbook

Every successful organization reaches a point where the old playbook no longer delivers results. That’s where you may find yourself today as a wholesale distributor.

January 5, 2026

video game music licensing featured image

Gaming’s MVP

One licensing professional spent months navigating 143 separate agreements just to clear 20 songs for a video game. Let that sink in for a moment.

January 5, 2026

data driven clearance pricing featured image

How Low Can You Go?

Every retailer knows that January brings its own kind of chaos. As a colleague of mine from Walmart once said, “January is for returns, exchanges, and waiting for Valentine’s Day displays to go up.”

January 4, 2026

Test

Tst

December 31, 2025

Maximizing Margin and Growth: What are the Consumer Products Trade Spend Trends Shaping 2026?

Consumer products manufacturers are entering 2026 at a crossroads, one that demands agility and direction to find a good stride.

December 15, 2025

Agriculture 4.0 and smart farming trends and solutions

What is Digital Agriculture? And How Is It Shaping The Future Of Farming?

The future of farming and the 4 pillars leading to agriculture 4.0 Approximately 11,000 years ago, our hunter-gatherer ancestors began trying their hand at crop farming. Fi...

December 3, 2025

Elevating Co-op & MDF Programs Smarter Incentives For Channel Leaders

“We’re sitting on millions in MDF funds, but half of it goes unused every year.” The problem wasn’t a lack of willing partners or market opportunities; it was the complexity of managing Co-op & MDF programs.

November 28, 2025

AI-powered rights management featured image

The Licensing Industry’s Invisible Revenue Problem

According to Licensing International, the licensing industry is projected to reach $369.6 billion by 2033. Behind the billions lies a maze of contracts, royalties and compliance risks no team can effectively manage manually.

November 12, 2025

CPG Pricing Strategies That Turn Market Noise Into Harmony

November 12, 2025

The Holiday Markdown Dance

The holiday season often marks a make-or-break period for retailers—when promotions intensify, aisles fill with shoppers and online traffic surges.

November 5, 2025

A Margin Hole-In-One

In golf, the difference between winning and falling behind often comes down to precision. A drive that strays just a few yards off the fairway can add unnecessary strokes to your score.

November 5, 2025

Stop Flying Blind

The licensing industry just got its wake-up call. It came wrapped in colorful packaging that was only visible after purchase. I’m referring to the blind box phenomenon, which represents one of the most complex licensing scenarios imaginable from a data management perspective.

October 28, 2025

Follow The Money

Right now, somewhere in Lagos, São Paulo or Mumbai, a teenager is pressing play on their very first music stream.

October 16, 2025

The Glocalization Imperative: Why Life Sciences Must Master Global-Local Strategic Balance

At a recent pharmaceutical industry roundtable, I watched executives grapple with a fundamental tension: how to maintain global efficiency while meeting increasing local demands.

October 14, 2025

The Profit Blind Spot

In retail, partnerships are everything. The deals struck between buyers and vendors determine more than just what ends up on the shelf—they shape profit margins, category performance, shopper perception and ultimately, the bottom line.

September 24, 2025

Round And Round

In today’s automotive industry, pricing isn’t just about costs, markups or even competition. It’s about strategy, perception and psychology.

September 18, 2025

Price Pack Architecture Strategies to Weather Any Storm

The foodservice industry is seeing several changes due to multiple economic and political factors, increasing uncertainty and sharpening a focus on value among consumers and distributors alike.

September 17, 2025

Trade promotion optimization featured image

Data Flow & AI: Powering Trade Promotion Optimization

Consumer products manufacturers can achieve stronger trade promotion optimization by harnessing structured and unstructured data with AI and LLMS, turning data chaos into real-time insight and ROI.

September 16, 2025

There’s No Pause Button In Wholesale Pricing

Remember hitting the ‘pause’ button in a video game to catch your breath and rethink your strategy before the next wave of attacks? As a distributor, you likely wish for that same pause amidst non-stop market volatility.

September 11, 2025

How do you get pricing right? Take the price optimization corridor

How important is it to get pricing right? According to McKinsey, a 1% price increase, on average, yields an 8.7% jump in operating profits—assuming no change in volume. But...

September 9, 2025

Adding Science to the Art: How Manufacturers Add More Profit with Price Management Technology

For manufacturers, revenue generation means earning the highest possible margins while running a sustainable business (i.e., maintaining minimum production volumes and a sa...

September 9, 2025

AI-powered analytics for pricing featured Image

AI-Powered Analytics For Pricing: Driving Real-World Advantage For Manufacturers

“We’re looking at a new AI-powered analytics solution.” That’s what manufacturers are telling us when we ask about their pricing strategy. Though it’s still the early days ...

September 9, 2025

Turning Consumer Intelligence Into A Competitive Licensing Advantage

What if your quarterly royalty statements have been misleading you? While you celebrate another “successful” quarter based on 90-day-old data, your nimblest competitors are capturing market share in real-time.

September 8, 2025

Turning Plays Into Profit

The latest Goldman Sachs ‘Music In The Air’ report delivers compelling news for music rights holders: global paid music streaming subscribers are projected to reach 827 million by the end of 2025, representing 10% year-over-year growth from 752 million in 2024.

August 29, 2025

Think Forward. Then Forward Again.

The life sciences landscape has a habit of shifting just when you think you've got it figured out. What used to be an industry built on predictable cycles now feels more like navigating through a constant storm of change.

August 28, 2025

AI powered retail pricing featured image

All Eyes On AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) has long promised to revolutionize retail, from optimizing inventory flows to curating hyper-personalized marketing experiences.

August 27, 2025

Moving Beyond “Do This, Get That” Rewards Programs

Channel partner loyalty programs have transcended the "do this, get that" incentive model.

August 20, 2025

fashion revenue management featured image

Time For A Tech Glow-Up?

The fashion industry is no stranger to reinvention, but today’s transformation isn’t happening on the runway.

August 14, 2025

DATA BEATS GOLIATH

In today's media landscape, content creators and production companies face their own Goliaths — mighty streaming giants that dominate the industry.

August 5, 2025

multi-platform-media-revenue-gap featured image

The Media Platform Paradox

According to PwC, media companies distribute content across an average of 7.2 platforms. Imagine you’re a farmer cultivating 7 fields, each with unique soil conditions, irrigation needs and harvesting schedules.

July 30, 2025

Death By A Thousand Pricing Errors

Every month, your wholesale distribution business processes thousands of transactions. Every month, hundreds of them are wrong. And every month, those errors cost you a fortune you don’t realize you’re losing.

July 30, 2025

Music’s Latest Hit

Remember when tracking music revenue was straightforward? Those days are long gone.

July 21, 2025

The Price Is Right…Or Is It?

This may come as a shock to some, but there was a time when there was a VERY limited number of television channels to watch, and daytime programming was especially limited and boring.

July 21, 2025

Private Labels Are In Full Bloom

Over the past ten years, the global retail landscape has undergone significant changes, and private-label strategies have rooted themselves at the center of this transformation.

July 9, 2025

api integrated licensing platforms feature image

Stopping The 34% Licensing Operations Leak

Are fragmented, outdated and disconnected tools and software making your licensing operations hemorrhage money? It’s time to actively manage your intellectual property (IP) empire instead of watching financial catastrophe unfold in slow motion.

June 27, 2025

Beyond the AI Panacea: Real Solutions for Life Sciences

At a recent life sciences conference, I counted the sessions focused on AI — 90%. Every conversation, presentation and networking discussion circled back to AI as the ultimate solution.

June 23, 2025

wholesale distribution value chain featured image

Going Beyond The Go-Between

The traditional definition of wholesale distribution — purchasing large quantities from manufacturers to sell to retailers or businesses — has become woefully outdated.

June 18, 2025

driving profitable growth featured image

Fishing For Profitable Growth?

Consumer behavior has changed dramatically in recent years, making it increasingly complex to identify the right actions to capture their attention.

June 16, 2025

Turning IP From Hidden Cost to Strategic Goldmine

In the high-stakes intellectual property (IP) arena, gut instinct has been replaced by a powerful new currency: predictive analytics. By 2026, Forrester Research forecasts the global predictive analytics market for IP will surge to $4.5 billion — signaling a shift from traditional asset management to strategic value creation.

May 20, 2025

No Hands, No Problem

The concept of self-driving cars and taxis has been in the news for decades. There have been some successes, but the reality of self-driving isn’t right around the corner for your typical roadway driver.

May 19, 2025

Cooking Up A Winning Private-Label Pricing Strategy

Retailers worldwide are experiencing a pivotal shift in consumer behavior, putting private-label products in the spotlight.

May 16, 2025

No Place to Hide: Navigating State Drug Price Transparency For Manufacturers

The rising tide of pharmaceutical price transparency laws and what they mean for the future of drug pricing For pharma manufacturers, price transparency is no longer just a policy issue—it’s a business imperative.

May 9, 2025

Royalty Accounting: The Money Behind the Music

Picture this: You’re at your desk sorting through a mountain of royalty reports — payments from streaming platforms, digital downloads and sync licensing deals — each one tracked in a separate, fragmented system.

April 30, 2025

From Expense To Excellence

Do you remember when supply chain management was as simple as stocking shelves? Those days are long gone. Today, navigating the modern supply chain isn't like steering a steady ship — it's like riding a tidal wave while blindfolded.

April 29, 2025

From Cost Center To Profit Engine: Power Up Rebate Management

In the fast-moving, high tech industry, where buzzwords like artificial intelligence (AI) dominate the conversation, it's easy to overlook one of the most powerful levers for strategic growth: rebate management.

April 23, 2025

Media’s New Kingmaker

When I started working in the media industry, we often made decisions based on gut feeling and intuition — maybe a spreadsheet if we felt particularly sophisticated.

April 17, 2025

Step It Up With Term Trades

In the last few years, the conversation between Consumer Products (CP) manufacturers and their customers has been driven by margin wholeness and dominated by price.

April 7, 2025

Price. Predict. Prevail.

In the rapidly evolving wholesale distribution industry, market leadership increasingly hinges on sophisticated data use in pricing and rebate management. I’ve observed that success requires more than technology adoption — it demands a reimagining of how you approach value creation and capture.

April 3, 2025

AI Chip Crunch: Don’t Get Caught With Your Chips Down

The semiconductor world is still digesting the last chip shortage, but there's another crunch brewing – and this time, artificial intelligence is at the table.

March 26, 2025

Fraud Fighters

Music streaming fraud diverts over $2 billion annually, threatening the digital music ecosystem’s financial integrity by corrupting every decision-making data point.

March 26, 2025

It’s The Year Of The Snake. Let’s Strike With Precision!

It’s the perfect time for growth and setting the foundation for long-term success. As an electronic device or component manufacturer, you are experiencing fiery competition and the need to power up the speed at which you respond to price quotes.

March 10, 2025

The Undertow Threatening Your Pricing Strategy: Parallel Trade

What if your carefully curated pricing strategy, tailored to regional economic conditions and market demands, was washed away by someone else profiting from the difference?

March 7, 2025

A License To Deal

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have become a prevalent strategy for growth, market expansion and consolidation in industries like media and entertainment, consumer products, high tech and fashion. While M&A teams focus on financials and negotiations, they often underestimate the licensing challenges that await post-merger.

February 26, 2025

The Unsolved Mystery Of Market Development Funds (MDF)

One of the most challenging aspects of working in the Consumer Products industry, or any industry for that matter, is analysis of the MDF investment. Specifically, aligning MDF to volume regardless of the investment amount.

February 4, 2025

Global Music Rights Management feature image

Rights & Royalties Without Borders

We're entering a golden age of data-driven rights management. The numbers tell a compelling story: $45.65 billion is the projected size of the global recorded music market by 2029.

February 3, 2025

The Magic Of Dynamic Markdowns

In the fast-paced world of retail, where trends shift rapidly, and customer preferences are ever-evolving, maintaining an ideal balance between stock levels and demand is a constant challenge.

January 23, 2025

Unlocking Your Profit Potential

Generative AI has revolutionized various industries by offering advanced tools for extracting insights from complex datasets.

January 16, 2025

retail licensing strategies feature image

Retail Remix

From the decline of shopping malls to the meteoric rise of ecommerce and experiential retail, the retail landscape is undergoing a seismic shift that fundamentally reshapes how licensed products reach consumers.

January 10, 2025

Choose Shoppertunity Over The SALY Plan

There is an old saying in the Consumer Goods Industry: "Just run the SALY plan.” SALY is an acronym for Same As Last Year.

December 19, 2024

The FAST Track To Success

As subscription fatigue continues, the rise of free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) represents a seismic shift in the media and entertainment landscape.

December 18, 2024

Is Your Pricing Strategy On Trend?

In the fast-paced fashion world, staying competitive requires more than keeping up with trends. Fashion brands must also master the complexities of pricing strategies, which have evolved dramatically in recent years.

December 17, 2024

Wholesale Rebate Survival Guide

As a wholesale distributor, you know the pivotal role rebate programs play in incentivizing your customers and optimizing relationships with your suppliers.

December 11, 2024

Price Management Automation feature image

Make Pricing Your Superpower

The automotive industry is dynamic and competitive, with vehicle manufacturers (OEMs) and suppliers working closely to innovate and bring cutting-edge technology to market.

November 21, 2024

Anchors Up! Are You Ready To Set Sail On The Value-Based Voyage?

The medical device industry is transforming significantly from simple, disposable products like syringes and wheelchairs to complex, multifunctional devices capable of diagnostics, remote monitoring and direct patient interaction.

November 19, 2024

GtN visibility in life sciences feature image

Clear Skies Ahead: Breaking Through The Gross-to-Net Fog

In the complex life sciences landscape of financial and commercial operations, gaining clear visibility into your Gross-to-Net (GtN) process is no longer a “nice-to-have” – it's fundamental to making strategic business decisions.

November 11, 2024

AI For The Win

Historically, wholesale distributors have been slow to adopt innovative technology. Their core business revolved around maintaining proximity to their audience and managing inventory effectively.

October 8, 2024

music royalty distribution featured image

The Silent Superstar

As the music industry continues to evolve, one critical aspect remains constant: the need for accurate, fair and timely royalty distribution. The industry’s silent superstar, metadata, ensures that artists and rights holders receive their rightful earnings.

October 8, 2024

vehicle incentive management feature image

Don’t Pump The Brakes On Incentives

As you navigate the complexities of the current economic landscape, one question looms large for the automotive industry: Is it time for rebates and incentives to return to pre-pandemic levels? The answer is a resounding yes.

October 7, 2024

Data Dominance Playbook

The multibillion-dollar sports licensing industry is a fast-paced and dynamic sector within the broader licensing ecosystem.

September 30, 2024

The Tetris Game Of Retail Revenue Management

Managing personal expenses can feel overwhelming at times — there are bills, subscriptions, insurance and everyday purchases to juggle. But imagine scaling that complexity to the level of a national retail company.

September 25, 2024

A Double-Edged Sword

While AI offers copyright protection benefits, generative AI raises concerns about content ownership and potential piracy. I want to elaborate on this thought and further explore AI’s impact on the media and entertainment industry.

September 23, 2024

Metaphorically Speaking: Get Rid Of Your Junk And Clean Up Your Data

Can your channel data management (CDM) solution provide real-time transparency into the channel of your component, chip or semiconductor sales?

August 5, 2024

Jump To New Heights, Drive Revenue With AI

It’s apparent that there is minimal information on “HOW” AI can be used with shoppers. Today, I would like to provide information on “HOW” AI can be utilized in the B2C route to market.

July 29, 2024

The Right Price For Right Now

Retail pricing best practices can help retailers improve margins, respond to market changes, and optimize pricing. Learn strategies that drive smarter pricing decisions.

July 11, 2024

consumer products price governance feature image

A Holistic Approach Turns Notes Into Harmony

Identifying the best price points requires a clear understanding of all levels of marginality. Leveraging price waterfalls across different markets, channels, clients, and products has always been challenging, and more recently, macro and industry trends have made it more difficult.

July 1, 2024

data driven solutions for wholesale distributors feature image

From Data To Dollars

Data is the new currency, quickly becoming the defining factor for success in the evolving wholesale distribution landscape. Data can be bought and sold, and it can mean the difference between profit and loss.

June 21, 2024

Redefining Digital Transformation: A Vital Strategy For Life Sciences

Digital transformation is now a pivotal lever for growth and innovation in the life sciences industry. Various influences – from pricing pressures to more stringent compliance and operational siloes are changing the landscape, especially for pharma and MedTech.

June 21, 2024

Got Those Data Discrepancy Blues?

The music industry stands at a crossroads: it may thrive on creativity, but its financial foundation rests on royalty calculations. Miscalculated royalties have serious financial repercussions for artists and rights holders.

June 20, 2024

It’s Time To Shape Up Your Ship & Debit Program

After a period of disruption, shortages and uncertainty, the electronic component industry appears ready to change its course in a positive direction.

June 19, 2024

Location, Location, Licensing

A successful LBE experience must be planned using as much data-driven evidence as possible to create the optimal experience.

June 18, 2024

From Sci-Fi To Reality: Media Industry Takeaways From The 2024 NAB Show

The 2024 NAB Show, the preeminent conference and exhibition produced annually by the National Association of Broadcasters that drives the evolution of broadcast, media and entertainment.

June 5, 2024

Right-Pricing Fashion For The Best Margin

Fashion has always been one of the most innovative and dynamic industries, and 2024 is no different.

June 3, 2024

Teamwork Makes The Dream Work

What is one of the main reasons that a B2B deal is won or lost? I believe it’s dependent on the strength of the relationship between your pricing and sales teams.

May 22, 2024

Are You Charged Up And Ready?

It can seem pretty incredible that electric cars were more popular than gas-powered ones in the late 19th century.

May 17, 2024

revenue growth management in cpg feature image

If I Had A Dollar For Every Time I Hear “AI”...

Repetitive business processes have never been more common – they are demanding and to complicate things further, typically require a large team. To me, AI and CP appear to be a “perfect marriage.” However, that is where the “honeymoon” ends.

May 7, 2024

340B Compliance: Making It Pay

Do you know a surefire way to eat away at your razor-thin margins? Manual processes involving government compliance.

May 6, 2024

The Hamster Wheel of Promotions

As a retailer, you are constantly analyzing the products or categories you want to promote throughout the year that are based on your strategy or growth plan.

April 30, 2024

When Did Music Royalties Become Chic?

Forget 6-month stress cycles and audit hell. Music royalties have become chic. The rise of streaming has ignited a data and transparency revolution, shaking up not only how artists, songwriters...

April 24, 2024

Get your MDF program management on track for 2024 feature image

Beat Your MDF Management Track Record

Most technology and software vendors like you offer co-marketing subsidies to your partners through market development funds (MDF) or cooperative (Co-op) dollars.

April 19, 2024

Turn The Tide On The Hidden Foe: Revenue Leakage

Wholesale distribution suffers from a silent, pervasive problem: revenue leakage. This problem occurs when potential revenue slips through the cracks due to inefficiencies and errors.

April 11, 2024

Dealer Incentive Program Strategies for Higher Sales

By most industry standards, 2023 was a profitable year for agricultural equipment manufacturers, predominantly due to increased efforts to provide incentives to dealer networks to offset elevated interest rates.

April 3, 2024

trade promotions advanced analytics feature image

On A Treasure Hunt For Gold Without Any Clues?

How the behavior and performance of companies that use AI differ from those that don’t. We will share different use cases and quantify the potential benefits of embedding advanced analytics capabilities into your processes.

March 28, 2024

On The Edge Of A New Frontier

You don’t need to look far to see that medical device innovations are the “new frontier” of the Life Sciences industry.

March 13, 2024

All Aisles Lead To Technology

Can technology reshape how we interact with our customers, vendors and internal stakeholders? The short answer is yes.

February 29, 2024

data-analytics-electronic-components-industry-feature

Is Data Invisibility Costing Your Company?

4 ways to ensure quality data and analytics in electronic components distribution. How much does a lack of data visibility and quality cost you as an electronic component manufacturer?

February 12, 2024

Control What Is Controllable In CP Foodservice

Saying Consumer Packaged Goods Manufacturers have faced a monumental amount of uncertainty and pressure over the last few months, is probably the understatement of the century.

January 29, 2024

It’s The Year Of The Dragon. Let’s Power Up!

January 24, 2024

A Licensing Glow Up

The licensing industry is in the midst of a transformation in response to shifting consumer dynamics, digital advancements and a growing emphasis on ESG (environmental, social and governance) and DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) initiatives.

January 18, 2024

Catching The Next Big Wave In Auto

It’s no surprise that the rising tide of autonomous technologies and electric vehicles (EV) has created ripple effects in the downstream supply chain, especially for automotive component suppliers.

January 17, 2024

The Secret Sauce

Chargebacks are a critical part of the wholesale distribution industry, accounting for up to 40% of distributors’ profits.

January 3, 2024

The Dark Side Of The Tune

The music industry has long been an arena where innovation and technology have shaped how music is created and consumed. In recent years, a new wave of challenges has emerged, threatening the industry and artists’ livelihoods.

December 15, 2023

Are You Getting A Slice Of The Subscription Services Pie?

As an automaker, you’re already discussing and preparing for the significant future revenue that will surely come from subscriptions and upgrades of vehicle features and services that are not included with the purchase price or commonly referred to, “as purchased.”

November 16, 2023

retail promotion automation feature image

Are You Trying To Catch Lightning In A Bottle?

Let’s face it – the speed at which we shop and do business is faster than ever. The pandemic accelerated and solidified the permanent shift to ecommerce for retailers.

November 6, 2023

Implementing Vistex Solutions By Focusing On The People Side Of Change

5 key concepts that strategically guide the process of implementing effective change management and ensuring its success, while prioritizing the well-being and engagement of your workforce.

October 26, 2023

medical device pricing strategies featured image

The Margin Squeeze Trap: Growing Tighter For The Medical Device Industry

Implementing the right pricing strategies for medical devices is crucial for achieving optimal profit margins.

October 16, 2023

Can You Afford Not To Invest In B2B Brand Equity?

Investing in B2B brand equity is crucial for the success and growth of retail consumer products businesses

October 8, 2023

Maximizing music revenue in the streaming era

The Streaming Gold Rush

Understanding and leveraging this trend to maximize revenue is crucial for you as a music industry executive to stay competitive.

October 3, 2023

The Price is Right

Implementing a wholesale price optimization solution can help your business maximize profit and achieve sustainable growth.

September 28, 2023

The Rise Of Private-Label And White-Label Branding

Private-label and white-label branding strategies significantly impact profitability of licensors by reducing costs and increasing profits.

September 21, 2023

The Very Best Algorithm

In a not-so-distant past, pricing companies competed, among other things, on algorithms that lend themselves well for pricing. Companies invested money and effort developin...

September 7, 2023

Revenue Revolution In The Digital Age

Winning the day with media revenue management In this lightning-fast digital era, artificial intelligence (AI)-driven technologies are changing how we select and view media...

August 24, 2023

Auto Shifting Buying Patterns Blog Graphics Feature Image

Are You Accelerating On The Straightaway Or The Curve?

How to take advantage of the shifting buying patterns and the future of Automotive retail In this closed-circuit racetrack that we call the Automotive industry, all OEMs wa...

August 16, 2023

Market analysis: Baby and child needs in retail

Whether diapers, rompers, pacifiers or baby monitors: German consumers spent 7.2 billion euros on equipment for their children last year. This is the result of this year...

August 15, 2023

Singing A New Tune

Will user-centric royalties ring in a promising future for music creators? The explosive rise of music streaming has transformed the industry, with millions of subscribers ...

July 24, 2023

The Crossroads Of Artistic And Artificial

Will user-centric royalties ring in a promising future for music creators? The explosive rise of music streaming has transformed the industry, with millions of subscribers ...

July 24, 2023

It’s A VUCA World We Live In

What if AI could tell CPGs precisely how to optimize trade spend planning? In previous blogs, we have described how data science and analytics can help Consumer Products Ma...

July 11, 2023

It’s A VUCA World We Live In

What if AI could tell CPGs precisely how to optimize trade spend planning? In previous blogs, we have described how data science and analytics can help Consumer Products Ma...

July 11, 2023

CPGs Take A Hard Right Turn Down Digitalization Lane

Prioritize RGM opportunities created by your 21st century odyssey During the last couple of years, Consumer Products manufacturers have been exposed to new challenges. Thes...

July 6, 2023

Don’t Let Your Bottom Line Bottom Out

Prioritize RGM opportunities created by your 21st century odyssey During the last couple of years, Consumer Products manufacturers have been exposed to new challenges. Thes...

June 20, 2023

Walking The Pricing Tightrope

Prioritize RGM opportunities created by your 21st century odyssey During the last couple of years, Consumer Products manufacturers have been exposed to new challenges. Thes...

June 19, 2023

Are Electric Vehicles Driving Us Closer To The Final Frontier?

Future electric car market growth and commercialization require OEMs to optimize automotive incentive management now Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before The fast-approa...

June 19, 2023

Who’s In The Major Leagues Of Retail?

6 best practices of top global retailers: how they create value and customer loyalty The major and minor leagues of retail In the retail industry, competition is fierce to ...

June 16, 2023

Doctor Byte: What’s Next In Digital Health And Digital Therapeutics (DTx)

What are digital health and digital therapeutics, and what role do medical device and pharma companies play? 7:00 in the morning my watch reminds me that yesterday I reache...

June 2, 2023

The Profitability Squeeze: Strategies and solutions to protect wholesale distributor profit margins

As a distributor, profit margins are your lifeblood. If changing market conditions and increasing competition put a “profitability squeeze” on your margins, you must strike the right balance of cost management, sales volume, total revenue and net profit. Data-driven solutions allow you to streamline operations, negotiate with suppliers, optimize pricing and remain competitive.

May 25, 2023

Are You Ready To Skate To The Winners' Circle?

A CPG Revenue Growth Management blog series on optimization sophistication: advanced level. Moving to the advanced level of optimization sophistication is not an easy achiev...

May 3, 2023

Economy graphics for travel and location

Convert Economic Headwinds Into Tailwinds

Wholesale Digital Transformation: How wholesale distributors drive economic recovery in Europe. Wholesale distributors operating in Europe face various challenges, including...

May 2, 2023

Is it time to test the waters of the metaverse?

The retail metaverse offers enormous potential for retailers to grow their customer base, but timing is key The water’s warming up, but you’ll still need a wetsuit 1, 2, 3…...

April 26, 2023

Prepare To Think Beyond The Semiconductor Capacity Constraints

2 semiconductor industry challenges all manufacturers must solve If you could see the future and know that the semiconductor market will double in the next 7 years, would y...

April 25, 2023

Commercial Policies Framework feature image

Your Next Profit Booster: A Healthy Dose Of Commercial Policies Framework

The importance of commercial policies framework in Life Sciences Did you know you can boost margins and profits beyond controlling pricing and contracts in sales? A healthy dose of a...

April 10, 2023

Your Next Profit Booster: A Healthy Dose Of Commercial Policies Framework

The importance of commercial policies framework in Life Sciences Did you know you can boost margins and profits beyond controlling pricing and contracts in sales? A healthy dose of a...

April 10, 2023

Unraveling The Mystery: Trade Spend And Year-End Close

Tips to stay focused and identify your CPG trade spend liability Flashy reporting and dashboards are an easy way to get caught up in data, predictability and “what-if” scen...

April 3, 2023

Untangling The Gordian Knot

How to drive revenue and profitability amid regulatory challenges for wholesale distributors Regulations give the public a high degree of confidence that claims have been v...

March 29, 2023

A Revenue Stream You Can Sync Your Teeth Into

How music sync licensing helps artists reap royalty rewards and exposure in today’s visual media landscape From TV to social media and gaming to fitness platforms, the grow...

March 27, 2023

It’s Not Easy Being Green

How will the surge in sustainability change licensing? Sustainability is increasingly crucial for businesses around the world. Across the $275 billion licensing industry, r...

March 24, 2023

Connectivity Is Coming To A Road Near You

Automotive industry trends for 2023: Connectivity Imagine driving KITT from Knight Rider to get groceries, take your kids to school, or go to the golf course. Sound too goo...

March 17, 2023

Intermediate Sophistication May Be The Road Less Traveled In Your CPG Organization

A CPG Revenue Growth Management blog series on optimization sophistication: intermediate level In a previous blog, we talked about optimization at an entry level and the be...

March 13, 2023

It’s The Year of the Rabbit, So Hop To It!

Data and analytics, customer experience among top wholesale distribution trends for 2023 This Lunar New Year, we celebrate the return of the rabbit, considered the luckiest...

February 28, 2023

Once The Be All, End All – Are BOGOs Really Working For You?

A CPG Revenue Growth Management blog series on optimization sophistication: entry level Like all industries, consumer packaged goods manufacturers are focused on Revenue Gr...

February 1, 2023

Is Supply Chain Disruption Moving Your Incentive Programs In The Wrong Direction?

High Tech Supply Chain Disruption and its effect on Incentive Programs “It is not the strongest or most intelligent who survive, but those who best manage change.” -C...

January 26, 2023

Looking for a needle in a haystack?

Discover the 5 benefits of crawling global web data In a recent blog, we talked about the 9 types of data to consider gathering for Revenue Growth Management and their impo...

January 24, 2023

Are You Mining Your Data, Hoping For Gold, And Getting Dirt?

Data is the new currency in Life Sciences and analytics is the pot of gold What if what you think you know just ain’t so? Mark Twain is credited with saying: “It ain’t what...

January 3, 2023

Wholesale Distribution Takeaways From VISTAS 2022

Financial concerns are top of mind — can wholesale revenue management save the day? I recently attended VISTAS 2022, the Vistex Annual Summit, where customers connect with ...

December 19, 2022

Wrangling A Foodservice/B2B Solution Into A Retail TPM Solution

Is it possible to run retail promotion management and foodservice contract management in one place? Anyone who has worked with or for a consumer products manufacturer can t...

December 1, 2022

The Art Of The Fair Deal

Songwriter remuneration and higher streaming royalty rates: A dream come true Recently, streaming services and music publishers agreed to set the highest streaming rate in ...

November 3, 2022

Keeping Your Glass Half Full

3 CPG pricing strategies for foodservice include thinking outside of your P&L As discussed in part 1 of this blog series, CPGs have begun the pandemic recovery but now...

October 10, 2022

Pushing Plush

Can streaming services build buzz and diversify revenue with licensed merchandise? Streaming services have shown they can sell content. They’re also pretty good at selling ...

October 6, 2022

Topping The Agenda: Mastering The Data Challenge On The Road To Optimization

9 types of Consumer Product data to consider for predictive analytics It’s no surprise that the benefits resulting from digital transformation programs have been demonstrat...

October 4, 2022

A Delicate Balancing Act

Wholesale revenue management means boosting profits, improving margins and hitting revenue targets Revenue management can be applied to data and analytics to predict demand...

September 13, 2022

Eyes On The Prize

Savvy brands score big with NIL deals and licensing contracts Since our first blog post on college athletes and name, image and likeness (NIL) deals in 2021 — when the Nati...

September 8, 2022

Invalid CPG Claims Could Be Costing You a Ton – What You Need To Know

Reclaiming your claims may feel like you’re just shuffling papers or even getting cheated Loosely defined claim audit standards applied without consistent rigor can r...

August 9, 2022

Music rights as an asset class: the latest “big hit” in the music business

Can investors and private equity firms maintain their up-tempo music royalty investments? If you’ve been tracking the headlines lately, you’ve likely read about the major a...

July 27, 2022

Is the Metaverse the Promised Land for Media and Entertainment, or a Fleeting Fad?

What’s your metastrategy for intellectual property (IP) rights, royalties and content management? The Metaverse is the next generation of the internet—a scaled, interconnec...

July 25, 2022

It’s The Right Time To Try Something Different

Will your CPG promotional spending continue to underperform in the current environment? In the past couple of years, promotional activities have been reduced when compared ...

July 21, 2022

Is Your Glass Half Full Or Half Empty?

Inflationary prices won’t lag behind for long in foodservice – shrinkflation as an alternative As the foodservice industry begins to recover from the pandemic, it also face...

July 17, 2022

High Tech Digital Transformation Industry

Industry 4.0: Are You A Disruptor or Disruptee?

Tackling tough challenges in high tech digital transformation It’s been dubbed “The Fourth Industrial Revolution” or 4IR for short. And some refer to it as “digital transfo...

July 14, 2022

6 Tips To Propel Your Market Development Fund Auditing

Are you steering your partners toward a stellar experience in claiming their MDF dollars? A well-executed market development funds (MDF) program can propel partner relation...

June 20, 2022

Riding The CMO/CDMO Collaboration Wave

CMO and CDMO partnerships are gaining momentum The Life Sciences industry was always viewed as a stable industry until the 2007-2009 economic downturn brought about interes...

June 7, 2022

Automotive Industry Trends 2023 for Self-Driving Vehicles

We Didn’t Start The Fire

Automotive industry trends for 2023: Autonomous vehicles As the old saying goes, the times they are a-changing. As a child of the 80’s, I loved Billy Joel. Still do. Given ...

June 7, 2022

Essentials to a Successful Co-Branding Partnership

Saddle Up for Success!

Take these “Magnificent 7” essentials for effective co-branding program licensing for a ride Co-branding programs—where two or more brands partner on a product or service—c...

June 7, 2022

Groupe Atlantic: simplifying pricing, claims and contracts with S/4HANA® and Vistex

May 18, 2022

The Struggle Is Real

Revenue growth management during inflation and how to protect your margins. There's no doubt that price has always been a key component of RGM (Revenue Growth Management)...

April 21, 2022

Bring Program Performance Into Full View

Is your channel revenue attribution giving you the visibility you need? I recently attended a conference that included channel revenue attribution as a topic of discussion....

April 8, 2022

How distributors help get your tunes on Spotify

Music To An Artist’s Ears

How music distributors get your tunes on Spotify Ever since the delivery of music shifted from the physical world to the digital world, Spotify, has been at the forefront o...

April 7, 2022

A Phine Line Between Physical And Digital

Are you taking a phygital approach for a better retail experience? Modern retail shopping can trace its roots back to ~800 BC in ancient Greece when the first merchants gat...

April 6, 2022

Royalty management aided by cloud scalability

Reach for the Cloud to Obtain a New Media Ecosystem

Cloud Rights and Royalty Management can Help Improve Media Scalability Powerhouse players have been making dramatic moves in the media and entertainment industry: Disney ac...

April 1, 2022

Let The Games Begin

NFTs are creating “play-to-earn” business models for the booming gaming industry Supported by nearly 3 billion gamers around the world, the mobile gaming market has seen ex...

March 11, 2022

Data Analysis Is A Journey, Not A Destination

Business analysis tools continue to evolve in sophistication. Yet, according to Forbes we only use .5% of the business data available to us. That equates to numbers between...

March 8, 2022

Next Stop, the Metaverse

What will become of intellectual property rights in the metaverse? The physical world is all abuzz over the Metaverse, a virtual world in which people will be able to buil...

March 1, 2022

Digital transformation journey will improve your 2022 RGM

Connecting The Digital Dots To Revenue Growth Management

What’s your digital transformation journey timeline? In the new fast-moving reality of our world, Consumer Goods manufacturers have had to face a great deal during the pand...

February 28, 2022

5 tips for managing wholesale customer relationships

Protecting Your "Vital Few"

5 tips for managing customer partnerships and growing revenue With distribution channels consolidating at such a rapid rate, maintaining fewer, larger customer partnerships...

February 17, 2022

Why is it important as a company to understand your net price?

Success in Gross-to-Net Management Affects Your Entire Business

Cookie Cutter Tools Are For Baking, Not Financials Achieving a true net price of a product is a challenge for Life Sciences manufacturers. Gross-to-Net (GTN) is not a simpl...

February 6, 2022

Steps to optimize your CPG ecommerce strategy

Back To The Store? 

Tips to optimize your 2022 CPG ecommerce strategy and retain healthy margins It is well known that ecommerce sales shot up 70% during the beginning of COVID. Grocery online...

January 28, 2022

determine reimbursements with scenario planning

Think Again. And Again.

December 20, 2021

Changing retail: How buying behavior will change in the future

Trade has changed tremendously in recent years. Due to the advancing digitization, the demands of customers have changed immensely. This clearly shows that times are changi...

December 15, 2021

A Front Row Seat 

3 retail industry trends for 2022 provoked by the pandemic that are upstaging decision-making The Retail Industry has had a front row seat in dealing with Covid-19 for near...

December 2, 2021

Product quality in eCommerce: Meeting new requirements

Why is price as the only differentiation criterion not enough for many customers? The purchasing process is accompanied by numerous individual requirements to a specific pr...

December 1, 2021

3 ways to manage return and recall pricing

To Return, Or Not To Return, That Is The Question

Return management in pharma: finding the right price Returns on drugs and medical devices are inevitable. Pricing a returned product is not an easy task for pharma and medi...

November 15, 2021

Product matching: The success factor in market intelligence

Big data is opening up new opportunities for retail to strengthen its market position. Using market intelligence, meaning an extensive knowledge of the market and the indiv...

November 15, 2021

2022 manufacturers face supply chain problems and labor shortages

Figure It Out Or Lose Your Shirt

A look at how labor shortages are driving supply chain disruption and rising costs Consumer Products Manufacturers like you are facing multiple challenges: labor shortages,...

November 10, 2021

There’s No Dip In Counterfeit Chips

Semiconductor authenticity remains mission critical during chip shortage Much has been written lately about the effect of the semiconductor shortage on automotive manufactu...

November 10, 2021

Market analysis: sports and outdoor articles in German online retail

For some, the motivation to exercise is mere health; others want to become faster, more agile and stronger. But one thing is certain: the growing awareness of fitness is cr...

November 1, 2021

BRANDED NFTS: All That and a Bag of Chips

Brands are leveraging NFTs for recognition and revenue, but will customers bite? As consumer behavior and the digital economy continue to change in the wake of the pandemic...

October 28, 2021

Artist Remuneration In The Digital Age: Can Musicians Break Through

Artist Remuneration In The Digital Age: Can Musicians Break On Through To The Other Side?

Streaming revenue—not music—makes the world go ‘round People typically associate musicians with private jets, designer wardrobes, cash and jewelry, and luxury cars, but mos...

October 26, 2021

2021 Media Consolidation in Streaming Services

Media Merger Mania

What does the continued media consolidation mean for the industry? Like a scene ripped from a blockbuster movie script, a giant tech company scooped up a major Hollywood st...

October 20, 2021

What is the Mechanical Licensing Collective or MLC

The Effective Collective

The Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) is all in on collecting and distributing digital music royalties The nonprofit Mechanical Licensing Collective was established by ...

October 18, 2021

Strikethrough prices – How to communicate your offers correctly

Prices are considered the number one sales argument in eCommerce. The so-called strikethrough prices or cross-out prices are a popular means for retailers to attract the at...

October 15, 2021

Go, Fight, Earn!

Student athletes are feeling the “earn” with NIL deals.But at what cost? In a wild card move, the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that the National Collegiate Athletic A...

September 28, 2021

Pricing strategies in the semiconductor industry

GAME ON Partner pricing strategies and the semiconductor power struggle: Who will pay the cost of inventory?

When the chips are down, how do we defeat the pain of pricing? “If you build it, he will come” doesn’t work for the semiconductor industry. And for their manufacturing cust...

September 21, 2021

Fear Not the Robot Onslaught

Autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) are kicking the rust off the pandemic-stricken distribution industry Picture if you will a large regional distribution center with dozens of...

September 21, 2021

Market analysis: the beauty industry in transition

The global cosmetics and personal care market is growing. According to Euromonitor, it is currently worth 250 billion US dollars. But the beauty industry is changing: So fa...

September 20, 2021

Why you should consider cultural factors in pricing

Pricing in foreign markets presents retailers and manufacturers with a major challenge. Many companies make the mistake of not adapting their pricing strategy to the respec...

September 15, 2021

Image recognition through AI: we are working on this technology for you

Artificial intelligence (AI) often sounds like science fiction, but above all the concept is a great promise for the future. Although the theories behind it are actually de...

September 1, 2021

cybersecurity in the manufacturing industry

Cyber Insecurity

How will you protect yourself in a world of invisible threats? Global cyberattacks in the manufacturing industry have increased by almost 3,000% since 2012. This gives manu...

August 31, 2021

3 Actionable Tips to Winning the Loyalty Program Marketing Race

Drive deeper customer engagement by mastering your communications strategy Is your loyalty program strong enough to keep customers coming back? When it comes to customer en...

August 30, 2021

Trends in Digital Acceleration Retail Industry

What Are The 5 “Secret Clichés” For Success?

Key Factors in Digital Acceleration for Retail and Consumer Products While DT (Digital Transformation) may seem like an overused term, it is top of mind for CP manufacturer...

August 17, 2021

What’s So Nifty About NFTs?

The topic du jour in the media and entertainment industry is NFTs, and for good reason. In the midst of a global pandemic, NFT trading volume exploded in 2020 with $250 mil...

August 13, 2021

No Drones Please!

Master the tech basics first to improve retail execution There’s no doubt that technology and innovation are fascinating and progressing at a rapid pace but before you deci...

August 4, 2021

The online flower business – a blossoming sector in eCommerce

Whether it’s Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, a birthday or something in between, by giving away bouquets, flowers or flower arrangements, we offer others a treat for almost ...

August 1, 2021

Foodservice Channels Digital Coupon Strategy

The Clash of the Coupons

The future is so redeeming As customers shifted from shopping in store to retailers’ ecommerce sites, digital coupon vs. paper coupon usage has also been impacted but to wh...

June 14, 2021

Is Your Channel Data Treasure or Trash?

Channel data management (CDM) is one of the best ways for High Tech manufacturers to increase visibility into the details of events and transactions within their sales and ...

June 7, 2021

Your Gut Or Your Data?

How do you make crucial business decisions? Trillions of dollars of revenue globally flow into manufacturers through indirect sales. Let’s face it…channel partners comprise...

June 6, 2021

How Junky Data Costs You Big Time

You know that junk drawer you have? It holds an unruly collection of random items that sometimes prevents you from getting the drawer opened or closed. Does your business h...

June 6, 2021

Where Purpose Meets Profit - Microchip Technology Round Table

Did you miss the Vistex Virtual Summit for the High Tech Industry on May 13th? Here’s a summary of what went down during our round table discussion with Mitch Little, Senio...

June 4, 2021

Chips And The Dip - The Semiconductor Industry and Supply Chain Challenges

On May 13th, Vistex presented its inaugural High Tech Virtual Industry Summit—and what an amazing event it was. We kicked off the day with an insightful keynote address: “S...

June 4, 2021

Are Your Partner Incentive Funds Driving ROI?

Proper Fund Utilization is Key to Your Partner Incentive Program Most corporations with channel partner programs as part of their go-to-market strategy incentivize their pa...

May 27, 2021

Pandemic Causes 3D Printing Epidemic in the Medical Industry

How a burgeoning technology is changing the future of healthcare “What began during the pandemic in response to a critical need has expanded to change the way healthcare is...

May 11, 2021

Whipping The Supply Chain Back Into Shape

How Manufacturers Navigated the Pandemic Bullwhip Effect in Supply Chain Management What a long, strange trip it’s been. Over the past year and a half, manufacturers and wh...

May 11, 2021

The Need for Speed: SVOD Services Meet Demand to Stay Competitive

When the world took a hard stop last year there were more questions than answers about how we would collectively respond to the pandemic. Our lives shifted dramatically in ...

May 11, 2021

AI-Generated vs. Copyrighted Music

Can AI composers manipulate us to prefer THEM? Once upon a time, there was a dystopian Philip K. Dick sci-fi novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? It inspired Ridley ...

May 5, 2021

What’s at Stake when Your Regional Channel Incentive Programs are not Aligned?

As regional marketing program teams become engrossed in the day-to-day operation of their channel incentive programs, the importance of alignment between teams and best pra...

April 30, 2021

Life Sciences Data, Is it Helping or Hurting?

You’ve Got Data. Is It Helping Or Hurting?

Raise the bar—and the bottom line Opportunity could be staring you in the face, but you might not recognize it. As a Life Sciences company, you have so much data. Are you m...

April 21, 2021

Music Catalog Sales Are Yesterday’s News: 2006 News, to Be Precise

It wasn’t the landslide that brought Stevie Nicks down. It was the pandemic. There was no sailing through the changing ocean tides once every concert venue had evaporated. ...

April 19, 2021

Rocket Rights Selects Vistex For Rights Management

April 15, 2021

Vistex Q&A with Joel Cartwright and David Schwartz

This Moment is Pivotal for CPGs and Wholesale Distributors alike

A virtual cup of coffee with Joel Cartwright - Consumer Products Industry Principal and David Schwartz - Director of Customer Success

March 16, 2021

6 Tips to Boost B2B Wholesale Distribution Profitability

David v. Goliath This past year resembled an endless David v. Goliath competition for wholesale distributors to gain web traffic and sales. While preparedness is always to...

February 23, 2021

Does Your Incentive Program Cater to International Partners?

Here is Something to Think About… Recently, I came across some interesting information while working with a client who has an MDF program that supports international partne...

February 23, 2021

Vistex and Reservoir Jointly Validate the MLC Data Quality Initiative (DQI)

February 18, 2021

How To Make Cross-Selling Your Cash Cow

It may have been a bust for many industries, but 2020 was a boon for semiconductor mergers and acquisitions. Analog Devices announced a $21 billion deal to acquire Maxim In...

February 10, 2021

Celebrity Licensing in A Pandemic

The Miley Cyrus Burrito with a Lady Gaga Cookie Chaser For celebrities, one casualty of the pandemic is their influence. While they’re catching up on their R&R, another...

February 4, 2021

Vistex Makes Forrester’s 2021 Channel Software Tech Stack

Vistex named in 4 categories Happy New Year Tech Stack! The 2021 Channel Software Tech Stack has arrived. Each January, Jay McBain, Forrester’s Principal Analyst, Channel P...

January 22, 2021

What's in store for CPG food and beverage manufacturers in 2021?

Food for thought While everyone is anxious to close or should I say, slam the door on 2020, there will certainly and unfortunately not be, a ringing in of immediate change ...

January 21, 2021

Chess anyone? Life Sciences Industry Trends in 2021 and Beyond

Now that the new year is upon us, I’m looking ahead and trying to imagine what new opportunities and challenges we’ll face in Life Sciences. At times like this, when there ...

January 21, 2021

Incremental Volume, Promotion Planning, the Shift in CPG to Ecommerce and How to Contain the Fire

My observation is that CPG manufacturers are sometimes slow to change with the times. A large portion of CPG manufacturers recognized a growing shift in consumer shopping t...

January 13, 2021

AI Generated Music: Who Gets the Royalties?

An author creating the great American novel would never be required to share their royalties with the platform they created it on, whether it’s an Underwood typewriter or word processing software like Scrivener or Microsoft Word. Similarly, musicians using artificial intelligence software (AI) to create music do not pay the AI software companies any royalties. They are entitled to collect the royalties from their AI-generated copyrighted music.

January 11, 2021

Bold Media Predictions, Part 2

Getting You Ready for 2021 In my last blog, I gave you 3 of my media predictions for 2021, which, let me tell you, generated some interesting back-channel conversations on ...

December 21, 2020

Status Quo? No Go for The Life Sciences Supply Chain

It seems like such a logical approach—in a global economy, concentrate the production of low-cost items in low-cost countries, simplify supply chains, and employ lean manuf...

December 14, 2020

2020’s Product Licensing Hero?

Face Masked Crusaders Has the pandemic transformed Paris, London, Milan and New York’s most coveted event—Fashion Week—into Face Mask Week? (One moment—filing the copyright...

December 14, 2020

6 Direct to Consumer Trends for 2021, Part 1

Bold predictions for the media and entertainment industry My friends, family, and colleagues will tell you, I’m ‘that guy.’ You all know someone like me—that person who can...

December 14, 2020

Wholesale Distribution Evolution - 2021

Post-Pandemic, How to Compete with Amazon When 20th century sci-fi looked to the distant future, did you ever imagine the world would look like it does today? Well, to be f...

December 3, 2020

Why pricing power equals pricing freedom

Hey manufacturers, what happens when you change your prices? Do your end customers benefit from price cuts, or does that cut get gobbled up by the supply chain? What did yo...

December 3, 2020

The “Black Friday” Trademark Controversy

Are German retailers still banned from advertising Black Friday sales? It was 1967 in Philadelphia when the term Black Friday was first used in the U.S. to describe the pos...

November 24, 2020

Readying your Partner Programs for 2021

During VISTAS last month, Kristen Cole and I discussed readying your partner programs for 2021. I hope it was the impetus to start thinking about what you should consider a...

November 23, 2020

Price determination – methods for optimal pricing decisions

As one of the most important value-added processes in companies, considerable attention should be paid to the process of pricing and thus to optimal pricing decisions. Seve...

November 4, 2020

4 Tips to Address Wholesale Supply Chain Shortages

Overcome Pandemic Supply Chain Drain The 2020 pandemic has transformed the way America shops. Fear has turned minimalists into hoarders. It’s as if consumers collectively b...

October 27, 2020

What’s a life-saving drug worth? It depends…

Drug development is a high-risk, high-reward business. The risk? According to Medicinenet.com, only 5 in 5,000 drugs that enter preclinical testing advance to human trial...

October 21, 2020

What Does Your Top-Down and Bottom-Up Trade Plan Look Like in a COVID-19 World?

In the next few months, most retail and foodservice CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) manufacturers like you, will be starting their annual process for 2021 S&OP (Sales &am...

October 12, 2020

What Happens When You Get Price Optimization Down to a Science?

Price optimization is the process of using data to determine the optimal price of a product, based on an objective or set of objectives. Hmmm…sounds pretty boring when you ...

October 12, 2020

5 Tips for Wholesale Distributor Wins in 2020 and Beyond

5 Actionable Tips for Wholesale Distributor Wins

If you’re a wholesale distributor scratching your head, trying to find your place in the world since the pandemic has skewed the way that everyone is shopping, you’re not a...

October 1, 2020

5 Actionable Tips for Wholesale Distributor Wins

If you’re a wholesale distributor scratching your head, trying to find your place in the world since the pandemic has skewed the way that everyone is shopping, you’re not a...

October 1, 2020

Global Uncertainty Calls for Agility and Flexibility in Incentive Compensation

Almost everything about running a business has changed in the last few months. But have you changed your priorities and expectations of your salespeople? A spring survey by...

September 30, 2020

Do Your Channel Loyalty and Incentive Programs Match the New Reality?

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said: “The only constant in life is change.” You can say that again. So much disruption is happening so quickly…how can you be sure yo...

September 21, 2020

4 Tips for Channel Rebate Success

Are your channel rebate programs motivating the right partners in the right ways? With 80 percent of the typical high-tech company’s revenue coming from the indirect chann...

September 16, 2020

YouTubers Are Making Millions Whispering and Eating on Camera

The Weird Royalties Series: Part One It turns out, you don’t need to be a charismatic podcast host like Joe Rogan or a Top 20 Billboard star like Adele to earn millions on ...

September 15, 2020

The Right Pricing Strategy

The right pricing strategy is a key success factor for any company and should therefore be given high priority. In previous articles we have already dealt with digital pric...

August 28, 2020

Find Your Sweet Spot by Gaining Control of Trade Promotions Against Your Plan

You have a lot on your plate. One thing you don’t want to leave behind is underutilized trade promotion funds. That would be like skipping dessert! Proper planning and exec...

August 18, 2020

The Silver Lining Playbook for the Licensing Value Chain

Can’t We All Play Nice in the Sandbox? At about this time every year, kids go to camp. That won’t be happening this year, and your immediate thoughts will probably include ...

August 14, 2020

Building Brand Loyalty in Uncertain Times

The COVID pandemic has created a shift in our landscape—challenging brands with building and maintaining their brand loyalty—as our idea of business as usual continues to e...

August 7, 2020

Why Siloed Solutions Won’t Win in the D2C Economy

How Rights holders with an integrated enterprise solution gain advantages on avails and business analysis We’re living in a time where a single Spotify download means break...

July 21, 2020

The Pandemic’s Impact on Streaming Trends

Surprise Winners, Losers and Pivots During the 2020 Lockdown In March, Nielsen was already reporting a 100% increase in streaming for Americans in the key 25-54 demographic...

July 7, 2020

Wholesale Distributors Find Opportunity in the Face of Adversity

Let’s face it. Most of us haven’t seen business disruption—life disruption—like this before. It’s hard to find a news story or television ad that doesn’t mention the pandem...

June 24, 2020

Great Customer Service: A Must-Have for Strong Channel Partner Relationships

With the competitive nature of the marketplace, channel providers should take every opportunity to provide exemplary customer service for and on behalf of our clients. Not ...

June 19, 2020

Is Your Sales & Marketing Approach Tuned in to Millennial Buyers?

A baby boomer, a Gen Xer and a Millennial click into a Zoom meeting. No, this is not the set up for a joke, it’s happening in businesses every day. Each generation has its...

June 11, 2020

Did Quibi Finally Quell Creator Rights Frustrations?

Rights and Royalties Deals Get a Facelift with Quibi For creators, what’s not to like about Quibi? When ownership is one of the greatest frictions for creators of entertain...

June 11, 2020

The race to a vaccine – unintended consequences?

A gold rush is on to find a vaccine for COVID-19. According to the World Health Association (WHO) in early May, there are more than 100 projects around the world centered o...

June 4, 2020

The 6 Biggest Pain Points for Life Sciences Contract Administration

When Your Contract Management (EDI 845) Hits a Catch-22: Every industry has its hiccups with contract administration, but Life Sciences is, shall we say… special in this re...

May 31, 2020

Six Strategies for Investing in Your Market Development Funds Process

You’ve probably heard the phrase 'unprecedented time' quite a bit in the last eight weeks. The current economic turbulence is likely to affect your company’...

May 28, 2020

Amplifying your unique partner value proposition

Amplifying your unique channel partner value proposition

There are questions that every company must ask: Why do partners or customers buy from us? What clearly motivates a decision to choose us or our products over others? What ...

April 9, 2020

Reducing cost and time to market in drug development: The importance of royalties for Pharma and Biopharmaceuticals

Within the last few decades, the cost and time to market for new drug development has soared. Nowadays, it takes an average of 15 years from first molecule investigations u...

April 3, 2020

Developing your “Data Spine” through a centrally-trained data “Hub of Excellence”

Not everyone in your organization is a doctor, so why should we expect them to be? How much data do you need to identify an opportunity for a business decision? Recognizing...

April 1, 2020

How Retail is Transforming Open Spaces into Unique Customer Experiences

Too Much Space….What To Do? Have you noticed the prevalence of for-rent signs in malls and retail shops? The US retail industry has too much space per capita and not ...

February 28, 2020

Lost Royalties from Book Piracy: Should Authors Fight Back

Lost Royalties from eBook Piracy: Should Authors Fight Back?

Authors, graphic novel creators, and publishers worldwide alternately feel helpless and frustrated to find that within days of their new eBooks’ releases, they are already ...

February 24, 2020

How Rights and Royalty Issues and Industry Conflicts Nearly Ended The Irishman's Oscar Destiny

We may never know the real story of how Netflix ended up with the rights to The Irishman, and frankly, the version I know is so convoluted, I’d bore you by retelling it her...

February 4, 2020

What’s in a Name? Royalties, If You’re Tailor Swift

While Prince Harry may soon take ownership of The Purple One’s old Artist formerly Known as Prince title, today’s lesser-renowned streaming musicians have an opportunity to...

January 31, 2020

How 2019 Could Spark Some 2020 Licensing Surprises

The disruptions and surprises in 2019 licensing trends have set the tone for swirling around the bone china cup and reading the settled tea leaves for 2020. In no particula...

January 31, 2020

4 Tips to Maximize Your Sales Reward Dollars

How varying the mix and simplifying your incentives program means greater rewards for YOU! Did you know that a company can increase sales by 50% by effectively tweaking its...

January 30, 2020

The Analytic Orientation of Pricing Management

Reflections while considering a new year, and a new decade in data analysis Last year, The Professional Pricing Society’s Q2 Journal of Professional Pricing, published an a...

January 27, 2020

Wholesale Distribution Evolution - 2020

Insights that Bring Your Business Back to the Future When 20th century sci-fi looked to the distant future of 2020, what was the world going to look like? We may not be dri...

January 17, 2020

The Power of Outcome-Based Pricing

In February of 2019, CEOs and senior executives from seven major pharmaceutical companies met with the Senate Finance Committee about drug pricing. During that meeting, Ast...

December 11, 2019

Delivering an Effective Marketing Strategy for Channel Partners

Thinking smarter may just mean thinking smaller Marketing is a central element to achieving, maintaining, and expanding reach and engagement with channel partners and end u...

December 6, 2019

How a Global Payments System Can Benefit, Not to Mention <em>Save</em> your Channel Program

Slow reimbursement can kill a partnership in no time. For channel partners everywhere, getting paid on time is a top concern, and being able to receive and make timely, cur...

December 3, 2019

From the High Wire to the AI Spire

How Predictive Modeling Brings Balance and Success to Your Supplier If you’ve ever been to the circus, then you know the excitement of watching the aerial and high-wi...

November 27, 2019

The Genesis of 360° Deals

Traditionally, record labels limited their revenues to sound recording sales, and artists would exploit other revenue streams to increase their profits, like touring and me...

November 15, 2019

Farming Innovation: From Ammonia to AgTech Software

Just over a century ago, the Haber-Bosch process was invented in Germany, enabling the scalable production of copious amounts of ammonia for the very first time. This 1910 ...

November 5, 2019

How a Compliance Council Clears the Chaos and Boosts the Value of Your Policy Exception Strategy

Death by a Thousand Favors Customers challenge commercial policies daily with the goal of cutting costs with their trading partners. While holding to policies is always the...

October 29, 2019

What’s a Chart-Topping Cassette Tape Really Worth in 2019?

Resurging Sales Say Old School Is Cool Again In one of the most famous scenes of Monty Python’s film The Holy Grail, the Black Knight is guarding a stream, refusing King...

October 17, 2019

Enhance the Partner Experience with a white-glove program

A White Glove Approach for Channel Partners Pays Off

When you think of white-glove service, what comes to mind? Often, we think of service that goes above and beyond, where special care or attention to detail is the highest ...

September 18, 2019

The Advantages to Inventory Life Cycle Data Via an Online Tool

In today’s high-tech world, companies of all sizes are still tracking their important data via spreadsheets. It’s no secret that manually manipulating spreadsheet data crea...

September 6, 2019

FOMO Redefined: Will Streamer ‘Fear of Media Obliteration’ Force Demand for Physical Media?

In October of 2018, a well-publicized auction at Sotheby’s auction house became the unintended metaphor for the future of streaming entertainment. Street artist Banksy’s...

August 29, 2019

How to Monetize Music on Social Media and Capture Royalties Due

TikTok, Facebook’s Lasso, Facebook’s in-app service Lip Sync Live, Instagram Stories and German-based Mobile Motion GmbH’s Dubsmash are some of the sites where musicians...

August 13, 2019

Royalty Management: Why Google Stadia and Its Cloud-Based Videogaming Rivals Need a Robust Solution

While videogame graphics have evolved from 8-bit to 64-bit architecture, rights and royalties management software also had to level up to meet user demand. Today’s R...

August 12, 2019

Taking a Holistic Approach to Revenue Management

The Brave New World of High-Tech Revenue Management Is Holistic the Way to Go? From music, to TV to software, cloud-based subscriptions are the norm today. Gartner estimate...

August 1, 2019

Carly’s Cost-Plus Pricing Strategy

Carly was tinkering frantically with her spreadsheets, as she had done all afternoon. This all started a week ago when the new CFO announced a set of initiatives to focus m...

August 1, 2019

Vistex Announces Partnership with European Pricing Platform

July 29, 2019

Licensing Expo 2019: Advice on Best Practices for New Brands

I have a special place in my heart for new brands who develop creative concepts and invest their savings towards bringing their ideas to market at the Licensing Expo. For s...

July 12, 2019

A Call for Mobile Dashboards

Leveraging channel promotions and rebates to automate manual processes Last year a client came to us with a need to provide partners with a mobile dashboard. The ask was t...

June 26, 2019

Sanjay Shah EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2019 Midwest

Chicagoland Global Software Company Vistex Doubles Down on the City with New Downtown Office

June 26, 2019

Revenue Leakage: A Focus on Deductions

Today’s ever-changing revenue ecosystem is increasingly complex, regardless of industry. Various industry experts have concluded that companies’ revenue leakage contributes...

May 29, 2019

Vistex announces availability of SAP S/4HANA® for rights and royalty management by Vistex

Vistex announces availability of SAP S/4HANA<sup>®</sup> for rights and royalty management by Vistex

May 29, 2019

Do you have the right Elements in place for a Successful Channel Partner Program?

Is it even possible to overestimate the role the channel plays in the high tech industry today? I’m pretty sure it’s not. If your company operates in the B2C market space, ...

May 20, 2019

Effective Special Pricing Agreements

Using Vistex technology to increase the speed, compliance and accuracy of SPA management Special pricing agreements (SPAs) are a great way to manage contract compliance and...

May 13, 2019

Observations from Channel Partners Conference and Expo

Wow! Is it May already?!? April was a busy month – several new implementations kicking off, interesting customer conversations about business challenges, and attending the ...

May 10, 2019

Get More for Your Money: Rebates 101

In both my personal and professional life, there has been one phrase I have repeatedly heard for ages: Rebates are simply a cost of doing business. Nowadays, nothing sells ...

May 10, 2019

The New Music Modernization Act: 3 Key Points

Since my last article discussing the Music Modernization Act passage from both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, the President signed the act into law. Recently...

April 26, 2019

Creating a Successful Partner Pilot Program

When it comes to rolling out new programs for partners, it is common to pilot the program to a subset of partners first. In addition to gauging your partners’ program engag...

April 26, 2019

Visibility and Transparency into Consumer Products

Visibility and Transparency – A Bird’s Eye View into Consumer Products

As long as I can remember, senior management within consumer products manufacturers have talked about achieving a working framework for sales planning and forecasting provi...

April 25, 2019

Who Still Pays for Cable? And Why?

There are a dozen websites and Twitter accounts dedicated to divorcing your cable provider and mixing up the perfect cocktail of streaming services. If CordCutting.com is a...

April 5, 2019

Vistex to Announce Rights Integration for TV Distributors at MIPTV

April 3, 2019

Vistex Unveils First and Only Cross-Divisional Rights and Royalties Management Solution

April 2, 2019

The Race is On for Delivering Content to Consumers: Can You Easily Monetize

Ability will never catch up to the demand for it," – Confucius While these words have never been truer – especially in the direct to consumer (DTC) economy ̵...

March 26, 2019

Vistex at NAMM 2019: Believe in Music & Software

The annual NAMM 2020 (National Association of Music Merchants) convention held recently at the Anaheim Convention Center was a massive affair…as it so often is! Every aspe...

March 25, 2019

Maximizing your ROI through Market Development Funds (MDF)

Recognizing the foundational blocks In my experience, the ability to plan, pivot and execute is what sets companies apart. Successful organizations can look ahead to both p...

March 19, 2019

Protecting your Intellectual Property

The Secret Decoder Ring for Licensing Contracts From eHow.com to WikiHow to Lifehacker and YouTube, there is no shortage of D-I-Y tutorials. But there’s one area where you ...

March 5, 2019

Price Optimization – Working with a Muddied Concept

What is Price Optimization? The term ‘price optimization’ refers to the process of setting your prices in such a way that they are optimal in respect to your business objec...

March 1, 2019

Creating a Best-in-Class Channel Incentive Program

While focusing on channel programs and incentives throughout my career, I’ve been presented many types of incentive questions from both partners and clients. But there was ...

February 20, 2019

In Licensing, Book Publishing Is the One to Watch

Here’s my prediction for 2019: The demand for creative content exploitation, partner transparency, and fair compensation will continue to amplify. This isn’t too much of a ...

January 18, 2019

Loyalty Program Strategies: Define, Design, Launch!

We obviously live in a fast-paced society. Many people are constantly on the go and in search of ways to simplify their busy lifestyles. As a result, companies are faced w...

January 11, 2019

7 content and licensing trends to watch for in 2019

As the sands run out on the 2018 hourglass, I cannot help but look forward to where technology and consumer trends will take us in 2019. In reviewing the projects we’ve dep...

December 19, 2018

Back to the basics: Create effective partner communications

Back to the basics: Creating effective partner communications

With the internet and so much information at our fingertips it may be hard to make your partner communications stand out, let alone get your partners to engage. However, ke...

November 30, 2018

The hidden world of intellectual property licensing

The next time you’re sitting in Caesars Palace amongst the cacophony of lights and sounds, pulling the one-armed bandit in rapid succession on what is hopefully a loose slo...

November 26, 2018

Channel track raises the stakes at VISTAS 2018

VISTAS 2018 was the biggest and best yet, complete with an electrifying keynote presentation from Vistex CEO, Founder, and Chief Architect, Sanjay Shah, mystifying magic fr...

November 8, 2018

The Music Modernization Act and CLASSICS Act move a step closer to becoming law

As consumption of music has moved away from the physical realm of CDs and vinyl into the digital realm, copyright laws have had difficulty representing this technological s...

September 28, 2018

Key Metrics in Channel MDF Program Efficiency and Partner Engagement

One of the motivators for channel partners is via market development funds (MDF). Whether accrual-based or discretionary, there are many measures that can demonstrate prog...

September 24, 2018

Streamlining the Licensing Workflow – Why Attending Conferences is Important

From January through June every year I am either managing meeting logistics or attending one of a few trade conferences which are very important to our business and the bus...

September 23, 2018

A Guide to Channel Partner Program Transitions

Change isn’t easy. We are creatures of habit, accustomed to working with tools, processes and people that are familiar to us. Learning to use new software, operate wi...

August 2, 2018

Use Channel Data Management to create a 360-degree view of your channel partners

When working with my channel clients I often hear the term Channel Data Management (CDM) discussed in the context of managing Point-of-Sale (POS) data. POS is certainly an ...

June 26, 2018

Key Steps in Developing a Channel Strategy

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” – Benjamin Franklin Creating and initiating an effective channel strategy is one of the hardest challenges channe...

May 24, 2017

6 Go-to-Market Strategy Tips to Enable Cloud & Traditional Partners

Many technology partners and vendors find themselves in the implementation stage of a hybrid Cloud model. Tiffany Bova of Gartner, sees the channel evolving as follows: (...

January 30, 2015

How Successful Cloud Partners Categorize Vendors

Even if you are the 800 pound gorilla in your market (think Microsoft, HP, Google), you need to get into your partners’ heads to maximize the potential of your channel. If ...

December 30, 2014

Analytics - 3 Data Visualization Techniques

Okay, I might be biased, but let’s address a common misconception: visualization is just about making things look pretty. Over the last 10 years I’ve found visualiza...

November 21, 2014

Move From GTM Program Management to Optimization

Companies across different industries – Technology, Consumer Products, Life Sciences, Automotive, etc. – are experiencing pain points in today’s rapidly evolving markets. ...

September 25, 2014

Strategy to Improve Promotional Allowance Programs

Promotional allowance programs (MDF, Co-op) can be one of the most effective tools in a channel marketer’s toolkit. However, they often also represent the largest expense ...

September 18, 2014

Channel Strategy & the 80/20 Rule - How to Improve the Bottom 80%?

If you’ve spent any time in corporate America you realize that The 80/20 rule can be applied to pretty much anything – candy consumption, crop yields, tenant complaints, s...

September 4, 2014

Facing Your Channel Program Execution...

You can have the most perfectly designed channel programs, but if you don’t execute successfully, it will fail … ever wonder why this is? The Business/Strategic effort to ...

August 21, 2014

Are You Falling Victim to These 4 Go-to-Market Challenges?

Recently, we hosted a webinar called Building a Go-to-Market Strategy to Enable Both Your Cloud and Traditional Partners. Our presenters VP Channel Strategy William Gilsin...

August 15, 2014

Are Your PAMs Biases Skewing Partner Profiling?

Companies are constantly reaching out to us for guidance on how to recruit the right partners for their channel. They have questions about finding their ideal partners, an...

August 7, 2014

Crawl, Walk or Run to Joint Marketing Planning that Drives ROI

If you are like many of us here at Vistex, you got into marketing because you enjoy engaging in creative and collaborative processes to develop strategic marketing plans, ...

April 3, 2014