What your BI already does
It ranks SKUs by revenue, margin, and volume. The loss-making ones are easy to see.
A SKU shows negative margin, so you want to cut it. The customer ripple stays hidden.
Portfolio and brand teams
Know which low-margin SKUs to keep and which to cut
Ask Sena which low-margin SKUs are real entry points and what happens to the rest of your sales if you cut one.
The problem
What Sena decides
Which low-margin SKUs are worth keeping as entry points, territory by territory.
Industries
FMCGBeveragesSnack FoodsSpiritsTelecom
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Sena decision AI by Rwazi
Decision AI with access to real-world dataThe problem
Large portfolios carry hundreds of SKUs, and some lose money on their own. Your BI already flags them. Cutting one is the part it leaves you guessing.
Removing a loss-making SKU can collapse sales of the profitable products next to it. Answering that needs financial data, co-purchase patterns, consumer activity, and coverage read together. A standalone margin report holds one of the four.
So teams do one of two things. They keep the SKU forever out of fear. They cut on standalone margin and lose the customers who came in through it. An SKU profitability analysis that stops at the margin line leads to both.
How it works
How Sena runs an SKU profitability analysis
01
Connect your financials
Upload SKU-level P&L, cost structure, trade spend, and pricing by territory and channel. Sena reads your ERP exports and your CSVs.
02
Sena finds the co-purchase patterns
It looks for SKUs that keep appearing together in the same outlets, territories, and baskets. A low-margin SKU that always travels with your high-margin lines is an entry-point candidate.
03
Sena cross-references demand
Strong volume on a low-margin SKU points to a portfolio role its own economics hide.
04
Sena models the removal
Ask what cutting a SKU in a territory does to adjacent product sales. Sena returns a directional simulation built on your historical patterns.
05
Sena surfaces the non-obvious ones
Some relationships appear only when financial, coverage, and demand data are read together. Those are the SKUs your team would have missed.
Identify which SKUs are net positive at the portfolio level
See how Sena works →Industries served
Industries and Rwazi capabilities involved
FMCGBeverages & BottlingSnack FoodsAlcohol / SpiritsTelecom
Teams also apply these strategies for SKU management in e-commerce, where basket data shows the same entry-point pattern.
Check out Rwazi and Sena capabilities
| Capability | Role in this use case |
|---|---|
| Sena (Decision AI) | Core engine. It reads your financial and ERP data, finds the co-purchase patterns, and returns entry-point candidates with what-if simulations. |
| Sena Connect and Integrations | Brings your data in by CSV or Excel upload. A direct ERP integration follows once you validate the POC. |
| Sena Consumer Activity | Optional. Commission a targeted read to confirm whether consumers treat a flagged SKU as their entry to the brand. |
| Sena Computer Vision | Optional. Verify shelf presence and store coverage for entry-point SKUs. Low coverage on a real entry point is a growth opening. |
Both optional layers validate what the financial analysis already surfaced. The core answer comes from your own data.
The gap
What your BI leaves open
What Sena adds
Sena models the second-order effect. Cut this SKU in this territory, and here is the estimated hit to everything sold beside it.
What you can add
Commission a consumer read or a coverage check to confirm the call before you act on it.
Ask Sena
SENA
Recent
SKU profitability
Territory read
Trade spend Q3
Data connected 3/4
✓SKU P&L
✓Trade spend
✓Territory split
Consumer read
Which of my bottom-margin SKUs show the highest co-occurrence with top-margin products in the same outlets?
Sena
Four SKUs in the bottom margin decile co-occur with your top-margin lines far above portfolio baseline. SKU E leads: the outlets carrying it buy 2.3× the portfolio average.
SKU E
2.3×
SKU K
1.8×
SKU R
1.4×
SKU B
0.6×
Traced to SKU P&L + outlet transactions18 mo
Break SKU E out by territory
Model cutting SKU B
SKU P&L.csv
Territories
Illustrative interface. Numbers are an example, not a Rwazi result.
Who uses it
Roles & functions
Corporate finance and FP&A
Model profitability at the portfolio level, and justify the SKUs worth keeping despite negative individual margin.
Portfolio and brand strategy
Decide which products to keep, cut, or reposition by their true portfolio role.
Strategy solutions →Commercial and regional sales
Know which entry-point products matter in which markets.
Sales solutions →Category management
Protect store coverage for the entry-point products that pull the rest of the category.
Revenue management and pricing
Price entry-point SKUs low enough to acquire and high enough that margin holds.
Why teams trust Sena
Why do teams trust Sena?
Get decision-ready answers fast
A demo takes about 20 minutes; first decisions are made days after kickoff.
Trace real buying
Every signal comes from a real person, with consent, back to a named source.
Your finance system stays in place
Sena adds what people actually buy beyond your four walls.
Related use cases
Related
UC · Portfolio & SKU
SKU rationalization & portfolio optimization
Model what happens before you cut, add, or reposition a SKU.
See the use case → UC · Marketing EffectivenessTrade promotion ROI analysis
See which promotions bring profitable volume and which give margin away.
See the use case → UC · Coverage & ComplianceTerritory performance diagnostics
Understand why the same product wins in one territory and lags in another.
See the use case →20-min live walkthrough
Talk to Sena about which SKUs are really earning their place in your portfolio
Tell us the decision you are weighing, and we will bring the market read to the conversation.
Watch a live demo of Sena Decision AI
See this use case run on a market like yours
Get the questions from your own team answered
Start from your own question
Bring the decision in front of you and we will run the first read against it on the call.
Talk to the Rwazi team
FAQ
01 What is entry point product identification?
Entry point product identification finds low-margin products that bring in your best customers. Sena runs an SKU profitability analysis across your financial and transaction data. It then reads the co-purchase patterns inside it. The result reflects portfolio role as well as standalone margin.
02 What is SKU profitability?
SKU profitability is the profit a single product earns after its own cost, trade spend, and pricing. A SKU can lose money on its own line and still bring in your premium buyers.
03 Which unprofitable products are entry points?
The ones that keep appearing in the same outlets and baskets as your high-margin lines. Sena separates those from the SKUs that only lose money. You can tell a real entry point from a product that bleeds margin.
04 Should I discontinue a low-margin product?
Look at its portfolio role first. Sena estimates how much volume adjacent products lose if you cut it, using your own historical patterns. You keep the SKUs that acquire customers and cut the ones that only bleed margin.
05 How do accounting platforms handle SKU-level profitability?
Accounting platforms report SKU-level profitability accurately for each product on its own. They stop at that line. Sena picks it up from there. It models what happens to the rest of the portfolio when you cut one.
06 How to track profitability by contract or SKU?
Upload SKU-level revenue, cost, margin, and trade spend, with a territory or channel breakdown. Sena tracks profitability by contract or SKU from that and keeps the portfolio effect attached to every line.
07 Is an entry point product the same as a loss leader?
A loss leader is priced below cost to pull people in. An entry point product earns its place by acquiring customers who buy your premium lines. Sena tells the two apart by reading co-purchase patterns against your margin data.