“We often feel like we’re fighting a David and Goliath battle, as we are up against the big brands”, says ABV’s MD and Key Accounts Director, Daniel Hawkins. “Our challenge is to change the mindset of the SA retailers, which usually tend to favour larger, alcohol suppliers.”
ABV Brands is a premium spirits marketer and distributor in South Africa that sells international brands such as Jim Beam Bourbon, Laphroaig Islay Malt Whisky, Russian Standard Vodka and Maker’s Mark Bourbon. The company has a sales team that services around 5000 customers.
In line with its aggressive growth plan, ABV needed to resolve a common problem experienced by smaller distributors: how to increase sales performance and motivate a comparatively small team to perform at its optimum level. “We often feel like we’re fighting a David and Goliath battle, as we are up against the big brands”, says ABV’s MD and Key Accounts Director, Daniel Hawkins. “Our challenge is to change the mindset of the SA retailers, which usually tend to favour larger, alcohol suppliers.”
Africa is one of the fastest growing markets for premium brands and ABV Brands, which focuses on super premium international brands, aims to help pioneer and champion this market. “As we are competing with the big spending brands, it is becoming even more critically important to monitor our sales effort – from in-store display and merchandising right through to sales calls, stock levels and repeat orders”, says Hawkins. “We needed a solution that was simple to use but which could do everything from tracking our sales performance, to monitoring our competitor’s activity, and one that could assist with actual sales conversion.”
Having explored various sales management systems and after receiving a strong recommendation from Namaqua Wines, which has transformed its business using this new software, ABV contacted Field Office about its HoneyBee sales management software. The Field Office created the HoneyBee software as an all-in-one tablet-based solution to help sales managers, through its web application, to monitor sales and sales rep activity. It assists the reps with their customer management and service in real time. It also allows sales managers and reps to be more focussed, to work faster and smarter, therefore optimising sales, while empowering sales staff at the same time. Training for the HoneyBee web application takes five minutes and its subscription is affordable at R700 per sales rep per month.
“Our main aim is to increase our conversion rate and Honeybee has done just that”, explains Hawkins. “Our rate has gone from 40% to 55% in just three months since using HoneyBee – and this is an excellent result, of course. And now we’re working with Field Office to plan our sales growth using HoneyBee.”
ABV Brands uses the Honeybee application to help give the reps the right level of responsibility and make them accountable: “We are not using Honeybee as a ‘big brother’ tool although we can see who is performing best and who isn’t. HoneyBee simply helps us to monitor what’s going on at any given time and all the time … and that’s invaluable.”
Many of ABV Brands reps have said the HoneyBee android tablet makes them appear more professional when they approach a customer, and this helps their confidence levels too. “Not only is the application helping our reps in their work, but it is also enabling them to give prompt feedback to the customers and hence better customer service. Our customer relationships have improved because our customers now feel more valued. They are getting more attention – and more accurate attention too. This is not only key in our industry, but it helps position us as even more professional and authoritative in the market and this is important when competing with the bigger players.”
“ABV plans to double its sales force in the next year, and we see HoneyBee being instrumental in helping us manage that growth and our sales force going forward. In fact, we’re working with Field Office now to hone the product to suit our aggressive growth plan,” says Daniel Hawkins.
Field Office’s MD, Sam Clarke adds: “The difference with Field Office is that we’re not a reseller of another company’s software. The HoneyBee software was developed by Field Office and the system is maintained by us. This means, of course, that we can then, when necessary, tailor HoneyBee for specific and individual client needs. By offering something as simple as a custom report or CRM integration, our ‘off-the-shelf’ software satisfies the customer needs as if they had invested in bespoke software … and this differentiates the HoneyBee offering significantly.”
For more information about Field Office and HoneyBee: www.thefieldoffice.co.za
Issued by Wired Communications. For queries, please call Elize Engle or Karey Evett on 021 464 1144
