Mars Replaced Thousands of Hours of Manual Work with One Reporting Platform
Mars co-built "Project Nirvana" with Vision Group to bring POS, planogram, and distribution data together for convenience store reporting. What used to be scattered across spreadsheets is now a single visual environment where the team can slice data on the fly.
Don’t just take our word for it
The team is just real and easy to work with. If we run into a snag, I can text Joe and we’ll get it solved.
Overview
Mars is one of the world’s largest consumer goods companies, spanning confectionery, pet care, and food products. Carlito Reyes, Senior Director of Category Strategy & Capabilities, leads a central team of 10 within a broader department of 90. His group supports field-based associates with tools, insights, and strategy to drive growth across major retailers like Walmart, Target, and convenience channels.
The Challenge
By 2022, Mars was rethinking its capabilities. Carlito was new to the business and tasked with finding more efficient, scalable solutions for category management and assortment planning. Pain points included:
- High costs and inefficiencies with prior vendors like Syndigo for image libraries
- Manual work in Excel for assortment, planogram reporting, and unmeasured data
- Inaccurate product dimensions that frustrated field teams and led to duplication of effort
- Overly technical vendors who struggled to connect tools to real business problems
Carlito explained:
“Some of us don’t care how it works. What we care about is does it solve my problem, is it customizable, and will it be supported long term.”
The Solution
Mars partnered with Vision Group (formerly SMSB) on two fronts:
- Automated Image library
• A bot now refreshes product images daily, eliminating the need for manual database updates.
• This solved major inefficiencies and removed the burden of training new team members on clunky legacy processes. - Project Nirvana (C-store reporting)
• Co-created with Vision Group to integrate POS, planogram, and distribution data into one platform.
• Replaced thousands of hours of Excel work with a visual, slice-and-dice reporting environment.
• Built iteratively with Mars’ team, adapting as needs evolved.
Tracy Demiglio, who manages data operations, highlighted the improvement:
"The database runs on its own now. That’s fabulous. Before, people weren’t even updating it because it was too much work."
Results
- Efficiency:
Automated image updates saved hundreds of hours for 20,000+ items in the library. - Ease of Use:
Field teams now access updated images and dimensions without manual effort. - Agility:
Project Nirvana turned messy Excel processes into streamlined reporting. - Partnership:
Vision Group adapted to Mars’ unique constraints (like FTP limitations) and found workarounds to deliver. - Trust:
Access to leaders like Jason and Joe means Mars never feels left “high and dry” with a tool.
Carlito emphasized:
“The team is just real and easy to work with. If we run into a snag, I can text Joe and we’ll get it solved.”
Why Vision Group
For Mars, the differentiator is Vision Group’s mix of industry expertise and flexibility:
“Other vendors led with tech and lost us in the details. Vision Group understood our business problems and spoke our language.”