The Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry is widely seen as fast-paced, innovation-driven, and fiercely competitive. While that’s true on the surface, there are deeper FMCG challenges that often go unnoticed — yet they profoundly affect how consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies operate, grow, and compete.
No matter your role, you’ve likely encountered familiar obstacles: systems that don’t communicate, AI projects that never scale, or data gaps that make analysis nearly impossible. These aren’t abstract issues — they’re daily operational barriers that slow teams down, increase costs, and limit the impact of even the best business strategies.
Drawing from our experience across global FMCG markets, we’ve outlined the most overlooked industry challenges and practical steps to overcome them — helping you strengthen your sales strategy, optimize resources, and build a more connected, data-driven organization.
1. The Tech Overload and Overcomplexity
Over the past decade, CPG software solutions have multiplied — each promising to solve one specific problem. Need a tool for retail execution? There’s one. Want to optimize promotions? Another one. Looking to forecast demand? Yet another.
While these investments make sense individually, collectively they often result in a tangled network of disconnected tools and data silos. What starts as a digital transformation ends up as a fragmented IT ecosystem with low adoption and poor efficiency — one of the most common and hidden FMCG challenges in the modern digital landscape.
This fragmentation introduces several business risks:
Broken Data Flow. Disconnected systems mean data silos, making it difficult to track performance, forecast accurately, or apply AI effectively.
Poor Data Quality. Inconsistent, unclean, or unstructured data is unusable for analytics and decision-making.
Integration Gaps. Overlapping tools and unclear ownership slow operations and create finger-pointing between vendors.
Maintenance Overload. Managing multiple platforms and contracts drains resources and diverts focus from strategic priorities.
True digital transformation isn’t about collecting more tools — it’s about creating a smarter, connected ecosystem. That’s why our approach integrates client systems, off-the-shelf technologies, and tailored digital solutions into a unified, AI-driven platform that grows sustainably.
2. Lack of Data Foundation for AI-Powered Promo Optimization
Trade Promotion Optimization (TPO) remains one of the most promising AI applications in FMCG, offering the potential to improve ROI, reduce inefficiencies, and guide smarter investments. Yet, many initiatives underdeliver — not because of poor algorithms, but because of poor data foundations.
Most FMCG companies still struggle with fragmented, incomplete, or inconsistent data. Historical trade spend, sales uplift, SFA metrics, and ROI details often live in different systems, incompatible with advanced analytics or AI tools.
Without unified, high-quality data, even the most advanced AI models can’t deliver actionable insights. For TPO to work, businesses need a solid data infrastructure — one that connects promotional data across departments, aligns KPIs, and establishes continuous feedback loops between planning and execution.
When this foundation is in place, AI-driven recommendations become reliable, measurable, and directly tied to revenue growth.