These are not slides. They are working demonstrations of a single idea: that every dollar of trade investment should be provable — matched to a commitment that was written down before the money moved, and testable months later when the deduction finally arrives.
Trade spend is the second-largest line on a CPG P&L after cost of goods. A working assumption of 8–12% leakage — through inaccurate accruals, unmatched deductions, and promotions whose return nobody can substantiate. That is a planning assumption, not an industry benchmark: published figures commonly cite 5–10% of deductions being invalid, which is a different base. Do not present the two as the same measure. What is recovered goes straight to EBITDA — no new customers, no new products, no incremental sales investment. At a 5×–7× exit multiple, recovered EBITDA becomes enterprise value.
Tariffs and ingredient inflation have made price increases frequent and large rather than annual. Every increase opens a forward-buy window — typically 30 to 90 days in which the retailer may buy as much as it wants at the old price.
That window does four things, and only the first is widely discussed. Shipments spike and then collapse, so two consecutive quarters misrepresent real demand. Promotions later run on forward-bought inventory, and the allowance gets calculated against a price basis that was never agreed. Deductions arrive 60 to 120 days after the cost change, when the people who made the deal have moved on. And the original commitment was a conversation, an email, or a deal sheet — which is to say, it cannot be produced.
This is the whole argument in one sentence: could the person who signed it prove it, or only repeat it?
The single idea everything else rests on. Four commitments, each sealed with a real cryptographic fingerprint that covers the one before it. Invite them to change a number. The entry they touched and every entry after it fail verification instantly — and the original cannot be reconstructed. This is the difference between recording a number and proving one.
Twelve quarters, three paths — hold, fix the obvious, or rebuild — net of tariff cost and programme fees, with forward-buy windows marked on the timeline. Includes a market-conditions module: pick the consumer-staples rotation quadrant and the effective exit multiple moves with it. Use this when the question is "why now". A compressing multiple means operational EBITDA is the only lever left.
Your fifteen questions, live. Revenue goes in at the top and the four opener cards compute trade spend, the value of a 3% improvement, and what that is at exit multiple — before a single question. Then five pillars, three questions each, progress bar, results locked until 15/15. Returns the score, the four bands, a pillar heat map, the two priority findings, and an EBITDA opportunity sized to their revenue.
The same instrument, worded for an imported, seasonal, mass-retail business — and joined to the tariff model. Part 1 sizes the Section 232 exposure; Part 2 scores the commercial system; the synthesis answers the question that matters: does the recoverable trade leakage cover the tariff cost, or does it go to price?
The landed-cost model on its own. Five inputs — landed cost, steel content, 232 rate, 301 rate, unit volume — showing what the April 2026 basis change did. Use it when the conversation is about cost, not about system.
A tariff-driven price increase opens a 90-day window. The chart shows shipments spiking to 310,000 cases inside it and collapsing to 48,000 after, while consumption never moves off ~120,000. Below that, five deductions are matched against the commitment on record at the time each claim was made.
Deduction-level detail across five retailers — committed, claimed, variance, and the evidence behind each dispute. Includes a recovery model you can move live with the leakage and recovery-rate assumptions while the client watches their own number change.
For private-equity audiences. Ten portfolio companies, trade spend and leakage by company, carried through conservative, realistic, and aggressive scenarios to enterprise value at exit multiple. Lead with the enterprise-value figure — it is the number a partner reacts to.
The walkthrough for the diagnostic itself: the value-engineering opener, the fifteen questions, and the scored results page.
Every figure in these demonstrations is illustrative fixture data on fictional companies. They show the mechanism, not any client's results. Say that plainly if anyone asks — the credibility of the refusal depends on it.
The capability is architected to be claim-grade. Do not describe it as claim-grade today.
Open here if you only get one screen. It takes about ninety seconds and it does something no slide can: it lets the person across the table test the claim themselves.
Matching asks whether a claim corresponds to something in the system. If the record was edited afterwards — or entered from the claim itself — the match succeeds and proves nothing. The ledger asks what was committed, and whether it has moved since. That is the question the retailer, the auditor and the parent company actually need answered.
This is the tool your walkthrough describes, and it now exists. Open it, hand them the screen or click on their behalf, and work through it in order. Two things make it land.
A lower score produces a larger recoverable figure — because more is leaking. The score is not the prize; it is the measure of what is being lost. Say that out loud, or the chart reads backwards.
One claim in the demonstration — Midwest Grocers, $47,900 — has no commitment on record. It was agreed verbally on a call. The system does not score it, does not estimate it, and does not quietly pass it. It reports it as unprovable.
That is deliberate, and it is the single thing that separates this from every dashboard the client has already been sold. Any tool can flag an anomaly. A tool that will tell you plainly when it cannot ground an answer is a tool whose other answers are worth something. Say so directly.
Trade promotion platforms are good at what they do, and if a client needs promotion planning and deduction matching they should buy one. These four gaps sit upstream of all of them, and they are where middle-market CPG actually loses the money.
A 45-minute working session in which the OGSM is built with the client — their objective, their goals, their measures, with EBITDA targets at 90 days, 6 months, and 12 months. They leave with a working plan, not a report.