Seeking the sweet spot
This reality is not different at BEES, where our hive is obsessed with using technology to enhance our customers’ businesses and to deliver incremental, meaningful growth, for all members of the ecosystem we empower through the platform we created.
Last week, as AB InBev and Ambev announced their Q1 2021 results, we were very proud as we received a strong indication that we are going the right direction.
On May 6, 2021 AB InBev announced Q1 2021 results which included revenue growth of +17.2%, comprised of 13.3% volume growth and 3.7% revenue per hectoliter. It represented +2.8% beer volume growth vs Q1 2019, which is a baseline that excludes any impact from COVID-19. In the press release, it was announced that “BEES generated incremental revenue growth through a combination of accelerated growth of our base business and expanding into new offerings through the platform.”
+2.8%
Q1 2019
Revenue Growth
+3.7%
Q1 2021
Revenue Growth
+17.2%
Q1 2021
Volume Growth
In the earnings call that followed, 40% of analysts asked AB InBev management a total of 5 specific questions regarding BEES to better understand how BEES captures opportunities for incremental growth and improves execution in the local markets. Carlos Brito explained that the BEES platform brings AB InBev closer to its customers and uses billions of data points to optimize pricing, assortment, promotion, execution, inventory, and customer service as sales reps evolve into business development agents to enhance customer performance. “And as we get to know our customer better, we offer them things that are more relevant to their business and make them more successful. As they grow, we’ll grow as well,” Brito concluded. That’s exactly the win-win growth proposition that we all seek!
On the same day, at Ambev’s Q1 earnings call, Jean Jereissati, CEO, said: “We believe that BEES has been important to deliver a strong commercial performance as it digitizes our route to market, enables our customers to place an order in 3 clicks at any time of the day and offers assortment selections to POCs using algorithms. On top of that, BEES offers other services, such as financial services, scheduled delivery, rewards programs, and other products via marketplace, providing a full e-commerce experience to our customers.
“Nearly every company is talking about digital transformation these days.”
Since our decision last year to launch BEES in Brazil, we managed to roll it out to all our Direct Distribution Centers and wholesalers. As a result, we now reach more than 65% of our active customers in Brazil via BEES, accounting for over 550,000 customers.”
In a report following AB InBev’s results, one sell-side analyst highlighted the “magic” of how the BEES platform can help our company to manage complexity in its business, better understand customer and consumer preferences, and leverage the firm’s relationship with millions of customers to deliver higher ROI and future growth. Another one highlighted the fact that AB InBev is currently a top performer in global market-share even when comparing against market leaders from different categories, which makes us even more confident.
“Our hive is obsessed with using technology to enhance our customers’ businesses and to deliver incremental, meaningful growth”
Nearly every company is talking about digital transformation these days. At BEES we believe in data, not hype; we believe in concrete and scalable improvement. And thanks to the tireless work of our BEES colleagues and local AB InBev teams around the world, we can now see the real, quantitative impact our transformation journey is beginning to have on AB InBev’s business.
During the quarter, BEES reached the following milestones:
- • Live in 11 countries – 7 in which BEES already captures more than 50% of net revenue
- • BEES customer Net Promoter Score (NPS) grew 10pts compared to 2020
- • > 1.5 million Monthly Active Users (MAU)
- • > $3 billion Gross Merchandise Value (GMV)
These milestones speak to rapid customer adoption which is possible only because the solution we provide is truly customer centric and solves real pain points for small and medium retailers today. As AB Inbev CEO Brito said about our BEES platform, “They’re adopting (our customers) because it makes their life easier, their business more successful, because it’s more relevant to them.”
Sounds like a sweet spot to me!
