T-Pro Solutions Delivers Positive ROI to Name Brands
Columbus is recognized as the #1 City in Scaling Startups, and with portfolio companies like T-Pro Solutions, it’s easy to understand why.
With less than five years in the marketplace, and with more than 100+ person-years of industry and domain expertise, T-Pro is already doing business with companies like Kellogg’s, Land O’Lakes, Tree Top, Welch’s, Ainsworth, and Snyder’s-Lance, just to name a few.
Why do industry leaders choose and trust a Columbus-based startup like T-Pro Solutions?
“In our industry, software companies have a reputation for overpromising and underdelivering,” said Terry Ziegler, CEO, “Then you have someone like us. We are a small company, but we are very much domain experts. What we do doesn’t take forever or cost millions. We are growing and adding customers because we use that experience to develop our software.”
T-Pro Solutions’ helps customers increase profitability by combining data sources and consultative expertise to help manufacturers of consumer packaged goods (CPG) make better decisions and improve their return on investment from in-store promotions.
T-Pro founders use their industry experience to simplify marketing
Manufacturers of consumer packaged goods (CPG) use T-Pro’s cloud-based suite of software applications to more efficiently analyze and manage their trade promotion investments. CPG promotions run the gamut from Wednesday flyers, to eye-catching soup displays, to promo pricing for crackers or potato chips. And then there’s the increasing investment in digital promotions.
The challenge for CPG manufacturers is collecting information and analyzing it in a time frame that allows them to act on the information.
“In the past,” said Ziegler, “it took companies so long to acquire and harmonize the data that they ran out of time to draw insights before new data was available.”
T-Pro Solutions integrates and aligns the disparate data silos that exist in most companies. With T-Pro platform’s predictive analytics and post-promotion analysis capabilities, CPG manufacturers can model their merchandising possibilities instead of being forced into endless trial and error projects in the grocery store aisles.
“Our application tells our customers which promotions drove market share and profitability and which ones they lost money on,” said Ziegler said. “Further, the application looks at this past performance and predicts the possible future.”
A trade marketer can analyze the reaction to a certain merchandising display or figure out which promotion to run in which stores and when.
“Our customers tell us that we are pragmatic; that we make software that is easy to implement and easy to use, so the user experience is very good,” Ziegler said. “We have credibility. Our customers see that we know the market and the industry and that we are not just selling software for the sake of selling software.”
Demonstrating savings to top tier brands
It’s a challenge for a startup in any industry to reach the right decision-makers, but T-Pro is making it happen, learning and refining their processes as the company signs up more customers.
“You start off with nothing, maybe a customer or two if you are really lucky,” Ziegler said. “You have to look at what’s happening the market place. Where do our customers have margin pressures? We do a proof-of-concept phase, add some of the customer’s data to our data base, and then make some suggestions based on what we learn.”
Those suggestions might be to make a small price change in a market or put out a particular display for two weeks, not four. “A C-suite executive from one of our customers had the goal to grow their margin. We focused our proof of concept on how to help them do that,” Ziegler said. “He saw a payback fast.”
The mindset at T-Pro is to contribute to the customers’ success. “We want to maintain and build a relationship beyond the revenue and the contract,” Ziegler said. “As we continue to grow our business, what puts the biggest smile on my face is when customers realize the positive results and success we discussed during the sales process. They are all referenceable.”
T-Pro started with the user and built the software around them.
“We focus on the after-sale,” said Ziegler. “I will do a debrief with decision-makers and the C-suite after the project. How did we do? Why did you pick us? I’m a sponge for information.”
T-Pro has grown to a team of eleven people, five serving customers across the country and six in Columbus. “It goes so fast,” Ziegler said. “It seems like just yesterday we were walking the halls of Rev1, networking and going through our first round of funding. Our success is all around our customers’ success. We are positioned to scale and grow. That’s what this is all about.”
