The US consumer goods industry is about as competitive as a sector can get. Mature product categories and consolidating customers make it hard for companies to achieve the double-digit growth rates that many aspire to.

In 2002, McKinsey conducted a survey to find out how consumer goods players are managing their customer-related activities in these tough circumstances. This survey, the sixth in a series that started back in 1978, covers 23 companies that together account for more than $110 billion in sales, or about one-quarter of the industry.

We looked at the way participants engage their salespeople across a range of activities, including innovation, pricing, trade spending (or promotions), and retail execution. Using external data, we correlated the market performance of the companies with their approach to these activities—and found differences between top-performing companies and the rest. The survey results that follow provide an idea of how such differences play out in pricing and how sales organizations generally have changed or stayed the same over the years.