Imagine a football game where one team communicates in a traditional huddle – heads together, working out plays – while the other side plays a game of “telephone.”  The quarterback whispers something to the Left Guard, who whispers it on to the Right Tackle, and so on. Want to guess how that game will turn out?

Too often, data silos turn wineries, craft breweries and distilleries into something like those telephone-game footballers, with missed cues and failed plays resulting from faulty information sharing. The sales & marketing team may lack information on which current restaurant customers are growing fastest and ripest for upsales, while the fulfillment team has that information at their fingertips. The vintner planning next year’s crops may be trying to guess responses to this year’s Chardonnay, because tasting room staff have no structured way to collect that information.

In controlled-commerce industries, data disconnects don’t just mean missed opportunities for revenue and growth. They also cause potential legal exposure. Have you taken the right steps to ensure nobody under 21 is ordering off your website? Are you sure your excise tax reporting is correct? And how many hours of hand calculations go into it every month?

A 24/7 “Team Huddle”

What if instead of this “telephone game,” everyone on your team had access, all the time, to all the key data generated by every player, bolstered by feedback direct from your “fans” – the customers and consumers using your products? Instead of whispers and missed opportunities, you’d have the virtual equivalent of an ongoing “team huddle” – with everyone in the company putting their heads together to share great ideas and best practices.

That “virtual huddle” is just part of what WineryConnect’s software integration “hub” offers. Designed specifically for controlled-commerce producers (wineries, cideries,craft breweries and distilleries), WineryConnect’s hub system, called “VinESB,” connects point-of-sale (POS) data directly to inventory, sales & marketing, accounting and other key business systems. 

Best of all, VinESB connects a range of service providers in all these areas into a single integrated technology ecosystem, like a bicycle hub connecting spokes to form a fast-moving wheel. In POS, for instance, VinESB already fully integrates with Revel, and will soon be fully linked with Square.  For e-Commerce, VinESB links seamlessly today with Nexternal and Shopify, and integration is being added with WooCommerce. For production control, VinESB already connects with Innovint, and will integrate soon with Process2Wine and Vintrace.  These best-of-breed partnerships extend to customer communications (MailChimp and Constant Contact), accounting (Quickbooks) and other areas.

Crucially, VinESB backs up information so your data stays yours. If you ever decide to change POS providers, or e-Commerce partners, VinESB and WineryConnect make the change a snap, with no need for lost data or rebuilding inventory or customer lists.

WineryConnect’s “Grape Squad” is ready to help with technical support, providing both real and artificial intelligence to ensure all systems work together smoothly and information sharing is supported in real-time, ready when you need it. Just one part of Grape Squad’s standard service is a monthly IT meeting to review all systems – an extra, regular, real-time “huddle” to make sure the “virtual huddle” keeps working 24/7 to support your business!

Scoring Goals!

With this easy connected information access, your team will find setting and achieving business goals easier than ever, as technology smoothly supports business objectives, instead of being an obstacle. Just a few ways current customers are using VinESB data include:

Streamlined excise tax reporting: With POS data for online, in-store and restaurant sales all available with a few mouse clicks, excise tax reporting becomes a simple and automated process; less busy-work, and reduced liability.

Inventory and fulfillment reports go directly to sales: No need for any special meetings, or hand-generated responses to queries. The sales & marketing team can see directly what items are flying off the shelves, and what may need more of a push. This real-time data can guide smarter decisions on everything from promotional campaigns, to where to increase production.

Customer feedback available across all teams: One of WineryConnect’s exciting new products is the Contactless Guestbook, which allows customers to sign in using their own mobile devices (reducing time and transcription errors compared with paper guestbooks).  Through the Guestbook, consumers decide for themselves to opt-in to data sharing, and confirm their age.  This helps address legal exposure around both consumer privacy laws and sales to minors. Meantime, consumers can give feedback on products, which again becomes available instantaneously, across the team.

Learn how our hub-and-spoke technology can help create a “virtual huddle” for your team, allowing you to set and move together toward your business goals!

For More Information:

Sales:  Keelan Hathaway keelan@wineryconnect.com

Adam Boccardo Adam@grapesquad.com