Problems abound in the brewing marketplace these days — climbing price ranges and inflation, issue sourcing uncooked resources and ingredients, and an ongoing labor shortage. Amid these troubles, business enterprise entrepreneurs are making an attempt to figure out how to retain their present-day functions with small disruption. Just one of the greatest ways to maintain transferring forward is to uncover means to do much more with fewer methods by adopting technological innovation and automating processes. With the right engineering in spot, you can help you save time, strengthen efficiencies, and get details more quickly.
Ekos, a prime business enterprise administration software package for craft beverage organizations, is concentrated on aiding breweries of all dimensions use know-how to their very best advantage so they can develop, even in hard moments. With a comprehensive conclude-to-finish computer software solution, Ekos can help brewery proprietors and professionals join facts across the supply chain, providing insights on uncooked materials prices, manufacturing trends, accounting KPIs, and sales metrics.
But of training course, Ekos is just 1 component of the puzzle. With higher connectivity will come greater visibility. Ekos sees a few key spots of chance for breweries who want to established on their own apart from the competitiveness and find strategies to expand their companies, even with the recent troubles.
Go through far more from Ekos down below and be certain to quit by booth #2525 at the Craft Brewers Meeting to join with the Ekos crew and get a demo.
Table of Contents
Get visibility to combat source chain problems
Provide chain troubles are prime of thoughts for all people. Whilst navigating ingredient shortages, skyrocketing rates, and ongoing supplier problems, breweries have just one aim in head — maintain generation on keep track of devoid of noticeably impacting margins.
For occupied breweries with significant buyer need and a extensive listing of income orders, output personnel want to do the job as successfully as doable. Ideally, each and every time you complete a batch, you are prepared to begin the subsequent 1. But what happens when you never have the ideal elements or packaging elements on hand? You have to delay your manufacturing schedule, which indicates dropped income and sad customers, or you have to fork out expedited shipping and delivery to get the products you need to have sent as before long as probable. On normal, breweries devote $250 further on each individual expedited ingredient order. And when the charge of elements and packaging are presently climbing, that more charge can have a huge affect on the base line.
Visibility is crucial to generating sure that you do not find oneself in these sticky scenarios. If you use an stock administration application like Ekos, you can see all of the stock you have on hand, know when you are heading to operate out and established reorder details when you tumble underneath a certain threshold.
Over and above understanding your readily available stock, a business management application can assistance hook up the dots in all spots of the organization. Jaclyn Smith from Monday Night Brewing describes the great importance of getting knowledge all in just one spot: “Having buy orders, stock, sales, and accounting flowing as a result of one particular system will make Ekos like the middle hub in a major wheel — maintaining anything alongside one another — as our small business grows.”
Link stock, income & accounting data
Technological know-how can help you operate extra successfully, but what comes about when you have way too many methods that really do not speak to each individual other? To get the insights you need to have, you (or someone on your crew) has to manually enter information in multiple spots. This not only requires time, but it also opens the door for details entry mistakes that could have large effects on your business if you are relying on facts in these techniques to make choices.
The to start with step of connectivity is to commence with a company management application, like Ekos, to provide as your method of file by means of which all data flows. Next, we propose that you link two very important items of software to this core process: POS/ecommerce units and your accounting software.
By connecting these 3 programs, you can enhance visibility throughout your business enterprise by immediately syncing day-to-day income to deplete stock and developing journal entries in your accounting system. Brian Stephens of Iowa Brewing Company reported, “Previously, I expended so considerably time seeking to make three items — inventory, POS, and accounting — converse to every single other, and it was a nightmare.” Now, as an alternative of expending hrs every single month reconciling gross sales from their POS procedure, his staff can get a serious-time view of accessible inventory and profits.
Ekos currently integrates with a few POS and ecommerce devices: Arryved, Sq., and Commerce7, with a lot more companions to arrive afterwards this year. On the accounting side, we know that 89% of breweries use QuickBooks (which integrates with Ekos), but we also aid Xero customers.
Leverage analytics & organization intelligence
We recently released the 2022 model of our Developing a Tech Stack Report. In this report, we analyzed the know-how that breweries and cideries are using to run their corporations. This year’s report is detailed — we deal with every thing from QA/QC resources and ecommerce units to software package for handling accounting or club/subscription courses.
The report highlights a lot of ways that breweries are utilizing computer software to get the job done smarter, but we identified just one prospect that might help your brewery stand out from the level of competition: analytics and business enterprise intelligence (BI) computer software. These electronic equipment change company information into easy to understand facts that you can actually act on. Our exploration located that 27% of breweries are not applying any kind of software for company intelligence and 62% are making use of spreadsheets.
Significant U.S. breweries were being the most probable to say they use some sort of answer, whether
it is spreadsheets or BI application. When the idea of “business intelligence” has not nevertheless turn into ingrained in the craft beverage marketplace, that doesn’t mean it is not crucial. Figuring out your small business inside and out and staying equipped to set that info to good use is key in this kind of a aggressive setting.
A superior put to start off is applying reporting and dashboards in your company management application so that you can see essential metrics and commence to detect themes and regions of advancement. Monkless Brewing, a little brewery in Bend, Oregon, has a related tech stack that permits the team to extract insights at each individual touch place from grain to glass to make choices that will guide to long run growth. Proprietor Robin Clement explained, “Other breweries our size are probably not pretty as far alongside in that technology realm as we are and not leveraging the applications wholly the way that we do, which has been genuinely eye-opening. I just really don’t see any other way to do it.”
Streamline sales with a digital get portal
Just about every revenue chief knows that time is income. The more time income reps can devote building relationships and speaking to prospects, the additional cash you can make. But of training course, there is time-consuming admin work, like inputting profits orders, that has to transpire at the rear of the scenes . Just after the customer requests an get, sales reps want to document the order, look at that the stock is readily available, and routine delivery. And, typically, there is some back again-and-forth essential to get the gross sales order verified.
A digital product sales purchase portal makes it possible for clients to put orders themselves. Ekos Get Hub is an online portal that is instantly connected to Ekos, so when customers area an order, it routinely makes a revenue purchase in Ekos and depletes inventory in true-time. It also streamlines the approval of product sales orders and retains all communication about orders in a centralized site. Paul DiMarco, stock manager at Adams Beverages claimed, “Ekos Get Hub is the easiest way to get in my present earth of item getting.”
Understand more about Ekos and get a demo at CBC booth #2525.
