Food & Beverage

Case Study

The Challenge

Asahi regularly send their sales team to various outlets across the country, with the aim to promote Asahi's products. In order to deliver a compelling business case to the outlet owners, their sales team used to rely on Excel-based calculators to demonstrate that replacing non-Asahi brands with Asahi brands could lead to an uptick in sales.

Historically, due to the cumbersome nature of running a spreadsheet on a laptop, the salesperson would have to do all of their calculations in advance of the meeting, and create as many scenarios as they needed, before exporting these to a more presentable output that would quickly convey the key information, usually in the form of a PowerPoint presentation. This is because the Excel calculator showed each and every step in the calculation, which resulted in a large amount of information on-screen, of which most of it are workings, rather than the final result.

The Desired Outcome

Asahi approached us with the idea of creating a tool that would streamline this process, resulting in quicker conversions and a higher quality sales pitch. In order to achieve these two goals, a solution would be needed that would be quicker to set up and manipulate, and also be able to produce client-ready outputs on the fly.

In order to refine the desired outcome, we worked with Asahi to initially produce an Excel prototype, which was a streamlined version of their existing calculator, but with a far more user-friendly interface. The calculations would be separated out into a separate section for inspection if required, but the primary interface was clean and intuitive and would output the key metrics in an easy-to-read format for the client.

Asahi also wanted their salespeople to be able to use this new tool on their iPads, phones or other portable devices, so they could demonstrate the impact of various changes in real-time to the outlet owners, and ideally also allow them to see the margin calculations in the background, in order to lend additional credibility to the business case.

The Solution

With the Excel prototype forming the basis of the design, we developed a web-based application that could be used on any modern browser with an internet connection. It was assumed that salespeople would have either WiFi or a 4G connection so connectivity in the field was not going to be an issue.

In order for the tool to be secure, there would be a portal that would require a username and password. The user would have options to either load an existing, pre-built range or create a new one from scratch, dragging and dropping brands from a quick search list in order for them to mimic what the outlet has on offer, and then copying that across to a proposed range, where they could swap out brands, change selling prices, and make a host of other adjustments.

Once this process a complete, a button will calculate the expected uplift (if any) or suggest to the user that a different combination should be considered, and there is an option to export the output into a PDF which can be printed onto an A4 sheet.

By allowing salespeople to save and load ranges, they can share their findings with each other, and the solution uses a combination of CGA benchmark data, along with the selected tier, segment and range role of each brand in order to calculate the estimated uplift. The margin calculations can also be viewed and changed on-the-fly, to allow "what if" scenarios to be quickly computed within seconds, in front of both the salesperson and the outlet owner.

The Impact

The tool is being successfully used by salespeople across the country, and we continue to utilise user feedback to develop further enhancements and features. Salespeople are now able to create convincing business cases on-the-fly, often at the outlets of their clients, and tweak the numbers as needed with instantaneous results.

• Professional - the tool's slick user interface presents the outlet owners with a professional business case, highlighting key figures and hiding the rest.
• Adaptable - whether it's being used on a smartphone, tablet or laptop, the solution can function as expected and adapts to the size of the display.
• Flexible - Asahi can update the tool with new CGA data, change brands and range roles, and manage users from a dedicated admin console.
• Intuitive - dropdowns, drag-and-drop and buttons are all used to make the interface as easy-to-use as possible, minimising the chance of error.