Midsize Business Case Study

New Belgium Brewing

Craft Brewery Taps Microsoft for Sales Information Tools and Communications Infrastructure Story at a Glance

New Belgium Brewing began in a basement in Fort Collins, Colorado, inspired by a Belgian bike tour. After his first taste of Fat Tire Amber Ale, Sales Director Joe Menetre wanted to introduce more people to the company’s Belgian-style craft beers. Yet, he was hindered by poor access to sales data and inadequate communications with the field. New Belgium deployed a Microsoft® Web-based business intelligence solution to give “Microsoft technologies work employees access to customer data to devise better sales strategies and together to collect and deliver chase opportunities. Sales reps also use Microsoft unified communication the sales information we need to take advantage of and mobile technologies to stay connected to the head office. opportunities, perform sales analysis, increase customer Belgian Memories business, you have to do fact-based sellinginsight, and keep our sales as well.” team connected. Now that we Like most fans of New Belgium Brewing’s craft beer, Joe Menetre remembers exactly have control over our where he was when he tasted his first Fat Inaccessible Information information, we’re using it to Tire Amber Ale. Flagstaff, Arizona, 1993, at our advantage.” Menetre’s biggest challenge was to improve his buddy’s bike shop, during a long ride Joe Menetre the flow of sales information from the reps in through the desert. It was an auspicious Sales Director the field into the brewery, and from the New Belgium Brewing coincidence, bikes being an integral part of brewery back to the sales reps. New New Belgium Brewing’s green corporate Belgium’s forecasting and manufacturing culture: the brewery was the first to convert systems contained important business to wind-powered electricity in the United information, yet did not integrate well with its States. Ten years later, Menetre often bikes Novell infrastructure and e-mail solution. to New Belgium, where he now works as the “We saw opportunities to integrate these two company’s sales director, overseeing 100 systems with e-mail to push information out sales reps in 18 states. to the field, but the reps had difficulty syncing their mobile devices to retrieve e- “New Belgium has grown from a family-run, mail messages,” he says. grassroots operation with three sales folks, where people made decisions based on gut New Belgium works with 120 distributors to feeling,” he says. “We didn’t want to change sell its craft beers to retailers and to obtain that intuitive, creative drive, but we needed the data describing these sales. Historically, better IT tools to support our growth. this data was faxed to New Belgium’s head Although this is a relationship-oriented

Midsize Business Case Study 1 Midsize Business Case Study office (aka the Mothership) where staff and Reporting Services make this sales rekeyed it into the company’s systems. New information available via reports on the Web Belgium used a Microsoft® Access database for sales reps. “Now we can tap data about and Citrix solution to deliver the data back our retail customers—a key capability for us out to the field, but it was error prone and to become a leading brewer,” says Menetre. unreliable. Sales reps eventually ended up “Greater account visibility helps us fix requesting sales reports directly from the problems before they get serious. Better distributor. access to sales analytics at points of distribution helps us to improve sales “It’s difficult to understand business strategies and gain visibility into new opportunities when you have little control opportunities in the off-premise channel that over the information,” says Menetre. “My we should be focusing on.” goals are to open new territories and to grow our business in existing markets, at the same time minimizing our environmental Staying Connected with the footprint. We needed to take ownership of Mothership our sales information. We needed to Executive Biography consolidate and disseminate it to the field to New Belgium replaced its Novell Joe Menetre graduated from Colorado State help reps communicate, and to help us infrastructure and e-mail solution with Microsoft messaging, collaboration, and University in marketing. He raced his bike in make better sales strategy decisions.” Europe before returning to Fort Collins and mobile technologies so sales reps can stay working in the printing business. After connected with the brewery and each other. joining New Belgium Brewing in 1998, Building an Infrastructure Now everyone stays current with easy e- Menetre became regional sales manager mail, contact, and calendar synchronization and he’s now the sales director. His favorite New Belgium chose an integrated Microsoft between laptops and Windows Mobile® New Belgium beer, Trippel, is an abbey style solution to align the company’s IT phones and inboxes back at the Mothership. that goes down well when he’s tinkering infrastructure with its business strategies. with his bikes. For Menetre, this meant going from isolated “Our Microsoft Web conferencing solution data repositories and disconnected helps us expand our markets and reduce Customer Details: New Belgium Brewing communications, to having a consolidated our carbon footprint,” concludes Menetre. Phone: +1 970-221-0524 customer data warehouse, automated “Instead of face-to-face meetings, we’ll use information flow, access to in-house reports, Company: 300 employees; 250 PCs Office Live™ meetings. Technology that Web site: www.newbelgium.com and improved collaboration among the field supports our sales growth and our green reps. “Microsoft technologies work together philosophy will always be part of New Software & Services to collect and deliver the sales information Belgium’s future.” we need to take advantage of opportunities, 2007 Microsoft® Office system perform sales analysis, increase customer insight, and keep our sales team Lessons Learned Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 connected,” Menetre says. “Now that we  Mobile workers need easy-to-use Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007 have control over our information, we’re technology for gaining quick access Microsoft Dynamics® GP 10.0 using it to our advantage.” to information. Microsoft BizTalk® Server 2006

 Give employees software that can Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 New Belgium built a sales data warehouse that contains data from its business adapt to the way they do business, Unified Messaging systems. Microsoft technologies automate rather than making them change. Microsoft SQL Server® 2005 daily imports of retail sales data from the Windows Server® 2003 Enterprise Edition distributors into the data warehouse. Windows Mobile® 5.0 Microsoft SQL Server® Analysis Services Active Directory® Rights Management Services

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Need more information? Document published June 2008 www.microsoft.com/midsizebusiness Midsize Business Case Study 2