Insights

As published in Retail World magazine, May issue

Supply Chain. Sales. Marketing. Finance. These are all parts of your business that can be restricted by underperforming assets or slow-moving stock – and all of them are overseen by Procurement. By refining your Procurement process through innovations in corporate trade, you can restore value to your business, and create new pathways for growth.

Put simply, corporate trade maximises value for your business by allowing you to use your stock or assets to increment media spend, marketing budgets, or other significant costs. Active’s successful financial solution offers endless benefits that can be applied comprehensively across your business – and in today’s increasingly challenging retail environment, no business owner can afford not to fully explore their options.

In recent conversations with a Global Procurement expert, we discovered the benefits of considering the impact to businesses across multiple business units through the lens of Procurement. Because individual business units have their own KPIs and focus areas, they don’t tend to pay much attention to how their challenges are affecting the organisation as a whole. Procurement, however, have a holistic understanding of all aspects of the business and how they work together.

When considering the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), Procurement must analyse the product or service in question, and calculate how to create savings or efficiencies elsewhere to reduce the overall TCO. Then there is the “Value,” which is not just the cost but benefit or value the product or service drives for the business. A product sold in volume or at a low margin delivers consistency for the business, but not always growth – and in the challenging market we find ourselves in, the feedback we receive from every business is that there is a need for growth.

If your business is slowing down under the weight of underperforming assets, surplus inventory (both goods and services), or if you’re spending excessive time and resources on dealing with these issues – Active can help.

Active International Australia was honoured to be recognised as one of Australia and New Zealand’s Best Places to Work.

The prestigious annual list, published by The Australian Financial Review and Boss Magazine, is based on a rigorous assessment process managed by Australia’s leading behavioural science consultancy, Inventium. We were honoured to rank #6 on the Media & Marketing list, from nearly 700 nominated organisations across Australia and New Zealand.

By Selina Martin, Head of Commercial, Active International Australia

As published in Retail World, October issue 2020

We have now experienced the enormous uncertainty these turbulent times have brought in the market and unfortunately, continue to bring.  Many brands have had no choice but to shred their plans for 2020 and be as agile as possible, forced to shift their focus towards cashflow preservation. Often marketing budgets are first to be cut as they seek to yield noticeable returns quickly.

Cameron Swan in an exclusive interview with Retail World talks agility and how businesses can navigate through the pandemic lifecycle a little faster than others. 

How a Corporate Trade model could help your business be agile in a year that has seen the impact of COVID-19 creating unforeseen circumstances, financial turbulence, and uncertainty. Read more ...

Published in Retail World October issue 2019

One of the biggest challenges for businesses today is slow-moving, unwanted stock. Stock that has had a change to its packaging, been delisted or even a cancelled order. For many and varied reasons your business can find itself with inventory that can weigh you down by clogging up your warehouse, get in the way of first line stock sales and in general “cost” more than you’d like to address what is better known as slow moving obsolete stock (SLOB). 

Disruption, volatility, and speed of change; accompanied by ever-increasing complexity - these are the hallmarks of the What's Next Economy. It’s no wonder supply chain professionals are doing everything they can to keep costs down, gain more control and agility, and deliver new forms of value to add longevity to their business.  As a company with commercial innovation at its core, Active International is colouring outside the lines: we’re making use of corporate trade as a tool to solve challenges with excess stock and/or improve the ROI delivered from existing media spends With us, adjustments and write-downs can become a discussion of the past.   

Published in Retail World magazine, written by Cameron Swan, Group Managing Director, Active International

In an age of constant disruption and pervasive uncertainty, brands are struggling to keep up. As the market becomes more fragmented, competition is tougher than ever, with start-ups and ad technology platforms making waves across the market, causing disruption. 

Cameron Swan, Group Managing Director, Active International talks about the company's recent transformation and how the business is expanding its commercial capabilities to help clients achieve more.