This international brewer maintains operations in over 70 countries and its distinctive lager flows in 178 countries across the world. As the second -largest brewer globally, this company continues to increase its presence within emerging markets—including across the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. In 2016, its Asia Pacific group produced 24.4 million hectoliters of beer, an almost 20% production increase over the previous year.
As production in the region grew, so too did the need to standardize and optimize operations. With rapid growth and acquisitions in the region, the company faced unique challenges in the pursuit of its corporate objectives. The world’s second largest brewer was looking to maximize market share in Asia, optimize end-to-end productivity, and provide excellence in outlet execution.
The brewer’s eight operating companies across Asia each developed regionally specific processes to meet the demands of the varied landscapes. Each had its own operating procedures, data-capture solutions, and systems of record. As a result, these disparate systems provided limited visibility to data and inconsistent process execution across the region.
This leading brewer needed a mobile solution to connect its disparate systems and drive consistent execution. Additionally, due to intermittent connectivity across the continent, the company sought a solution that would allow employees to operate effectively in any environment, on or offline.
To solve its challenges, the brewer chose to implement Cloud Inventory.
The combination of Cloud Inventory and its mobile-first Merchandising Sales App addressed the key challenges impacting the brewer’s operations across APAC. The configurable, modular solution connected data from across the region, was easily personalized to meet the needs of each operating company, and offered critical offline capabilities.
Cloud Inventory allowed field employees to:
With better access to data and connectivity in the field, employees would be able to make more informed decisions.
The Merchandising Sales App provided a single, standardized view of tasks, inventory, and customer information in the field, meaning the brewer’s eight operating companies could all access the same data on their different ERPs.
Cloud Inventory’s multi-language and ‘build once, deploy many’ capabilities made for a short implementation, regardless of the user’s language or platform. This was a major benefit to the brewer’s diverse workforce, and it allowed the company to scale quickly in the region.
One of the world’s largest brewers now has a cohesive view of performance across APAC. The company piloted the solution in 2013 at a major operating company in Vietnam. Since then, the application has been rolled out to nearly 3,000 users in Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Taiwan, and across China.
Additionally, the brewer has extended the Merchandising Sales App beyond its operating companies to third-party distributors. Equipping distributors in Vietnam with the mobile-first app helps them reach more distribution points in one of APAC’s fastest-growing markets.
As a result, the company has improved consistency, quality, and productivity. Field reps now have accurate data on hand and can capture information in the field to make better strategic decisions. More importantly, the company has achieved a single, standardized process across a diverse region.
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