Budweiser Essay

budweiser Lager was first brewed in 1876 by E. Anhe phthisisr & Co., St. Louis. Today, AnheuserBusch is the largest brewer in the world in terms of volume, and it competes across a diverse clip of markets. The company oversees more than 30 different beer brands, including the domestic market loss leader Budweiser, a number of other alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages, a convocation of theme parks, and a real estate enterpriseWhile retaining its create from raw material traditions, the company has adopted new technological traditions that improve its business and market effectiveness. In 1997, chairman August Busch III vowed to make his company a leader in mining its customers buying patterns. The key to Anheuser-Buschs real time analysis of marketing effectiveness is timely info getting study back from wholesalers and retailers on what is selling where and when. Wholesaler and workshop-level data has become the lifeblood of our organization, express Joe Patti, Anheusers v ice president for retail planning and category management.Therefore, Anheuser-Busch created BudNET to yoke to wholesalers, retailers, and other AnheuserBusch business partners. The system handles sales reporting, customer development, retail promotional material notices, and weekly sales forecasting, as well as a across-the-board array of logistics-related functions. BudNET is the information channel for an Anheuser-Busch system called WEARS (Wholesaler Equity Agreement coverage System). Through BudNET, the delivery population of the 700 U.S. distributors of Budweiser can become the eyes and ears of the brewer. WEARS and BudNET do much more than just keep tabs on the flow if icy-cold Bud off retailers refrigerated shelves.Using portable transaction computers, the delivery people withal log data on computing harvest-feasts, identifying what else is on the retailers shelves. At the end of the day, Anheuser-Busch gets the data and looks for trends. If Anheuser-Busch loses shelf space in a store in ClarksVille, Tennessee, they k like a shot it right away, said Joe Thompson, president of Independent crapulence Group, a research and consulting firm. Theyre better at this game than anyone, all the same Coca-Cola.Understanding consumers means more than just gathering data on your own product or on your competitors product. Anheuser-Busch also analyzes syndicated bar-code scan data gathered by Information Resources Inc. (IRI), to track consumer acquire behavior across a full range of products. Anheuser-Busch successfully launched low-carb Michelob radical after seeing data on consumer shifts in dietary habits in other food groups. Timely, fine-grain data also help Anheuser-Buschs marketing and product assortment. With store-level data, the company can create targeted marketing materials. For example, gay models await on posters in San Franciscos Castro district, but not on those in the Mission district. Better data also help predict topical anesthetic sales during holidays, such as knowing that Atlantans celebrate Fourth of July more than St. Patricks Day.Anheuser-Busch know where cans sell better than bottles (blue-collar neighborhoods), and helped the company launch a range of Latin-inspired beverages such as Tequiza and Sauza Diablo for the growing Hispanic market.Anheuser-Busch uses a physique of internal and external data sources including consumer demographics, POS, and market data to guide product assortment decisions. AnheuserBusch uses the six-step, industry-standard best practice called Efficient Item Assortment (EIA) that is promulgated by the Food Marketing Institute. Software, co-developed with an outside software vendor, creates a top-tine procure assortment product list for individual stores and store clusters. This tool won a Technology Leadership Award from Consumer Goods Technology (CGT) magazine.Anheuser-Buschs use of IT is international. Budexchange.co.uk, hosted on BudNET, tracks key data and sales of 5,000 Br itish outlets. The system rewards the faithfulness of trade customers with Budweiser-branded support materials. Anheuser-Busch uses the data provided by the outlets in its proactive segmental marketing communications program. In a market in which boilers suit sales are down 5.7 percent, Budweiser sales are up 7 percent. Anheuser-Busch continues to expand its use of datalinks, using its market clout to improve data gathering and data sharing. August Busch IV, president tor domestic operations, promised that brewers and wholesalers with a clear, data-driven focalise will have a distinct competitive advantage. Market conduct data confirm the success of the companys strategy Anheuser-Busch now commands 50.1 percent at the market in 2003, up from 48.9 percent in 2002.