Leveraging Technology for a Competitive Advantage
Growing a successful business as a producer of spirits and wines is no easy task. There are countless variables, obstacles, challenges, and pitfalls for a new beverage producer to overcome, and the competition is fierce. Nevertheless, determined and ambitious producers – driven by an abiding passion to craft memorable liquors and vintages – soldier through the adversity and, with hard work, perseverance, or perhaps a bit of good old-fashioned luck, succeed at making a good living doing it. Achieving this success can come with its own challenges however. Some producers come to find themselves victimized by their own success as their products break through and growth begins to accelerate more quickly than their operations can effectively handle. What can be done to avoid plateauing (or worse, failing to meet with growing demand)?
When distribution of your product was limited to a single state or handful of states, sales volume was more than likely manageable using spreadsheets and other manual processes. Trade marketing spend, depletion reporting, pricing and other tasks were still well-enough accommodated using the business systems you developed organically, along the way. But, once you began expanding distribution regionally, or found entre into your first national account, these systems began to grow inadequate to the tasks. They simply did not scale up as gracefully as your production processes.
This is about the time that an emerging producer might wish to take a good look at leveraging some of today’s cloud-based process automation technology. Getting past the plateau described above requires embracing tools and practices that open the door to accommodating marketing activity and sales volume that would have seemed unreachable when you first started out.
As an example, check out the story of this Sonoma, CA-based wine producer who found themselves in just such a situation. Learn how they leveraged state-of-the-art beverage selling technologies to automate time-consuming manual processes, modernize pricing and expand into new territories; upping their game versus their competitors. Read the case study, Wine Producer Boosts Competitive Advantage with GreatVines.
