The Beers Family was founded in July 2019 by two century-old breweries from the north of France – Brasserie Duyck (Jenlain beer) and 3 Monts. It is a shared sales force structure, operating as an economic interest group. Its mission is to “boost” the sales of craft beers in supermarkets and other points of sale, up to the “drives”.
This 50/50 joint company aims more broadly to promote and support family and independent breweries. It plans to strengthen its commercial organization in the coming years and has already gone from 18 to 25 employees in three years. It generates an annual turnover of 2 million euros.
The annual production of the two shareholder breweries each exceeds 100,000 hectolitres. Its headquarters are located, like that of a start-up, in Lille in the Now Coworking shared workspace of the Palais de la Bourse (CCI).
Energize the sales force
A few months ago, to “boost” the commercial launch of a new brewery, The Beers Family looked for solutions dedicated to the sales force. She called on Nomadia, renowned for its references in distribution.
“The craft brewery market has been booming for several years; it is very dynamic, but overall the beer market is ultra-dominated by three major players [AB inBev avec Hoegaarden, Leffe et Stella Artois notamment ; Heineken ; et Kronenbourg] “, explains Julien Demulier, deputy general manager of The Beers Family.
“In this context, our objective was to invest in marketing tools capable of helping us to push our brands in large and medium-sized distribution. »
The solutions put in place also aimed to boost the marriage between the two partner brewers. “One of our objectives is also to extend these services to other interested breweries, in the form of the sale of services. This is already the case with LBF (La Brasserie Fondamentale) based in Paris in the 11e district and which brews its production in Pithiviers in the Loiret. »
A virtuous circle of digital sales
The first solution chosen was a CRM (Customer relationship management) application intended for the twenty or so salespeople who travel in the field: Solvnet by Nomadia.
“They can enter their diary, their appointments, locate them, draw up a precise statement of the products on the shelves, with a photo library, and the possibility of directly editing their visit reports. They also have online access to all the promotions negotiated with the breweries”, summarizes Patrick Tellouck, managing director field sales division at Nomadia.
“The solution comes down to creating a real virtuous “digital sales loop”, integrating everything for salespeople: the sales plan, product sheets, etc. »
Another advantage: the application made it possible to integrate a third brand, within very short deadlines and while securing all the data. It is hosted in the cloud in a datacenter based in France, a Nomadia partner.
Sectorization for salespeople
The other application need was a digital tool for the sectorization of the territory for the attention of salespeople. Their field of prospecting is very vast: 3,200 points of sale (including 40% hypermarkets and 40% supermarkets, representing approximately 70% of beer sales) out of 18,000 active points of sale in France and 6,000 drive-thru.
The difficulty is to distribute this territory between 20 salespeople in a rational, balanced and efficient way. “It is crucial to choose the customers who must be visited”, specifies Julien Demulier. “Hence our two-pronged approach: on the one hand, to assess the potential for possible turnover or ROI (return on investment) and, on the other hand, to take into account the societal dimension: travel time, kilometers traveled with the CO2 footprint, hotel nights, etc.
The choice fell on the Territory manager solution from Nomadia, “which allows the sectorisations to live over time”, relates Patrick Tellouck. “Because you have to take into account multiple factors, such as short or long (parental) leave, relocations with regard to salespeople (heads of sector), departures of salespeople and vacant sectors and new customers”.
The aim here is to maximize the number of visits per day, while making them more efficient, more economical and more relevant: “As a priority, we must avoid “white” visits: interlocutors absent, unavailable. » Appointments are generally held in the morning.
In practice, sectorization therefore consists of dividing territories into sectors in order to optimize the commercial potential according to routes, distances, etc. – but also according to a key criterion: consumption indices. For beer, they are higher in the North and East of France. This explains the need for optimization of sales distribution in order to maximize value.
As part of a three-year plan, this application is piloted at headquarters by the management of The Beers Family with the involvement of the three managers, regional supervisors (Great North, East-South-East, West-South-West).
On the IT side, the underlying infrastructure is installed in the cloud (Microsoft Azure) with the provision of Office 365 and Teams as well as shared drives (storage spaces). To sum up, emphasizes Julien Demulier, “we have set up a partnership in good understanding with Nomadia, which shares our values. Sometimes their product managers accompany our sales staff in the field to adapt and improve our tools. They are always listening. This is also the quality of service”.