American Beverage Marketers Goes with the Flow
American Beverage Marketers (ABM) (www.abmcocktails.com) is a leading distributer of premium cocktail mixes, found in retail stores, restaurants and entertainment establishments throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia.
ABM was measuring store-level retail execution and sales performance by manually collecting data from Excel files and miscellaneous e-mails — making the process time-consuming, inefficient and tough to scale.
“Collecting and aggregating the submitted forms was a monumental task,” said Imad Makdah, chief information officer, ABM. “In addition, making sure that everyone used the latest revision of the form was a big challenge.”
ABM needed to ensure data collected was not only accurate and consistent, but also aligned with best practice standards.
A mobile retail execution solution could drastically improve productivity, save time, and automate retail price audits and account surveys. ABM needed a central location to handle retail audits, manage users, track devices, and monitor staff hours to enhance control and visibility into the field. It was also important for the mobile solution to easily integrate with internal databases, so teams could access crucial business data in the field.
After evaluating multiple enterprise mobility solutions, ABM chose Flowfinity (www.flowfinity.com) because of its user-friendliness, simplicity and built-in web browser portal that could effectively control business processes.
“Our day-to-day operations have been drastically simplified because of Flowfinity’s mobile apps,” says Makdah. “Our business processes are more efficient, and our captured field information is centralized and automated, making our workflow run very smoothly.”
Using Flowfinity software, ABM customized a solution to automate its retail audits and surveys process exactly to its specifications, resulting in higher efficiency. Field activities now take less time to complete and teams meet monthly targets faster.
The software also provides the centralized database on the company’s wish list, allowing management to go to one location to find all the information they’re looking for. This instant collaboration means issues are spotted and decisions are implemented right away.
With a two-way data flow, field staff can retrieve vital information on the spot, on any device. This enables them to complete work with accuracy and eliminate information gaps, no matter their location in the field.
By going mobile, ABM has also improved its customers’ overall impression of its business and enables the delivery of insightful retail performance results.