TradeInsight Tames Trade Spend Management

TradeInsight Tames Trade Spend Management
MEI Launches Affordable Trade Promotion Management and Forecasting Solution

PITTSBURGH, PA (February 15, 2011) – MEI, the global leader in trade promotion management (TPM) software, today introduces TradeInsight, an affordable, next generation, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) trade management and sales solution. Designed specifically for natural, organic, and specialty food and beverage manufacturers to better manage, plan, execute and analyze trade promotion spending, TradeInsight is the first enterprise-level TPM solution paid for on a monthly subscription with no up-front fees and can be integrated into existing accounting systems in as little as 10 days.

Rather than relying on a blizzard of individual Excel spreadsheets, TradeInsight simplifies every facet of trade promotion spending by collecting and centralizing sales, forecasts, and spending data for view alongside other company sales and marketing data. More accurate accounting, spend forecasts, and the means to challenge distributor bill-backs are just a few of the many advantages of TradeInsight.

"Don't 'cell' yourself short," says Lorne Schwartz, CEO of MEI. "Juggling spreadsheets saps the valuable time of sales teams and executives and provides little insight into how trade spends are actually performing over time. TradeInsight allows you to remove the guesswork by putting one plan in one place so your team can make better spending decisions and operate more efficiently."

TradeInsight's top line includes the following features:

• PromoPlanner provides a comprehensive calendar view of the promotions that are running which can be viewed by account, brand or category.

• SpendingInsight automatically calculates spend forecasts from promotion and sales forecasts giving you access to real-time spending forecasts by account, item, and period and quickly identify the promotions that are generating the spend.

• DeductionInsight displays a promotion list that allows finance to see exactly which promotions and allowances are running for a given account and time period, so you can easily match promotions to incoming charge-backs while maintaining an accurate historic record.

• RetailerInsight forecasts and tracks sales directly to distributors, from distributors to retailers, and retailers to consumers.

For more information on TradeInsight and MEI, please visit www.TradeInsight.com.

About MEI
Founded in 1983, MEI is a global provider of trade promotion management (TPM) solutions. MEI gives packaged goods companies the power to integrate TPM into existing sales and marketing accounting systems to better track trade spend and performance, planning, forecasting and reconciling. A Web-hosted enterprise software solution, MEI increases profits, strengthens brand assets and provides better supply chain and inventory management. For more information on MEI, please visit www.meicpg.com or call 1-800-INFO-MEI begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 1-800-INFO-MEI end_of_the_skype_highlighting.