Minimum Version Required: 22.01
Steps
While there are several schools of thought on Brand Hierarchy, Encompass assumes the following, and recommends that distributors set up their data accordingly:
Supplier Family: Owning parent/entity of a group of suppliers.
Supplier: Who makes the product, from the consumer's perspective. This is often what is displayed on the label itself.
Vendor: Who you buy the product from.
Encompass does not recommend using the supplier field to denote 3PLs/distributor partners, importers, etc. Instead, these entities should be notated on the vendor record.
Brand Family: Collection of brands (ex: Barrel Aged Series, Seasonal, Etc.). Sometimes, this can be the same as the supplier.
Brand: The liquid itself - the flavor. This is generally package agnostic, unless the package is included in part of the branding. Think value-added packaging (VAP), or special or non-traditional packaging.
Product: The brand + packaging (most granular).
Example Hierarchy:
Supplier Family: Anheuser Busch Inc.
Supplier: Budweiser
Brand Family: Bud Light
Brand: Bud Light, Bud Light Platinum, Bud Light Chelada, etc.
Product: Bud Light 4/6 pack 16oz Cans, Bud Light 4/6 pack 16oz Bottles, Bud Light Chelada 2/12 pack 8oz Cans, etc.
Additional Considerations:
A brand family should only 'point' to one singular global supplier, meaning that all of the brands/products under a brand family should all point to the same global supplier.
A supplier record, ideally, should only have brand families underneath it that point to the same global supplier/supplier report code. Distributor numbers are typically unique for each supplier and provided by VIP/SRS. However, we are unable to add multiple Suppliers Vendors records (necessary for VIP/SRS reporting) for a single location with different distributor numbers.
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