Company Created to Serve CPG Industry

What do you do if you feel your industry lacks a well-suited CRM solution? You create a company that offers one solution catered specifically to your market. That's what Acosta Inc. did. Acosta, a national sales and marketing agency for the consumer packaged goods industry, spearheaded the creation of VeriSync Trade Solutions, which the company says aims to overcome the challenge of poor data transmission between manufacturers, brokers, and suppliers. The newly formed company offers a suite of three products tailored specifically to help CPG companies solve this problem of data quality. The new offerings include: InfoLync (category management software); ItemLync (product management and supply chain products); and TradeLync (trade promotion and deduction software). VeriSync uses completely outsourced platforms created by software vendors who focus specifically on solutions for the CPG industry. These include Montreal-based MEI, which specializes in promotion and deduction management systems; Franklin, MA-based Integrated Software Systems (ISS), which provides e-Catalog, UCCnet connectivity, and product management tools; and Greenwich, CT-based Sudden Impact, which has developed an automated category management software. "When we were looking at solutions for midsized CPG manufacturers, all of them were cost prohibitive. So, in order to allow these companies to level the playing field with the big guys, we partnered with these three companies to create a tailored solution that integrates easily into a company's operation," VeriSync CEO John Watkins says. Watkins says that the total cost of implementation of VeriSync's solution is 10 percent of the cost of purchasing the three individual solutions separately. Watkins also notes that the VeriSync platform is built so that more components can be added to suit the industry's changing needs in the future. The product will be available in the first quarter of 2003, and Watkins says the company is already aggressively marketing the product to the CPG industry.