An App for a Brewery: Salespeople Have All Orders at Their Fingertips and Drivers Can Keep Tabs on the Kegs

If an innkeeper doesn’t regularly clean their pipes, the beer suffers, and the reputation of the brewery suffers along with it. That’s why sales representatives at brewing companies have more responsibility than someone might expect. Our custom-made application makes sure they have up-to-date data on their orders, rented taps, and pipe cleaning dates at their fingertips. We also developed an application for delivery drivers who need to know exactly how many kegs they are carrying. 

Monitoring Orders, Credit History, Parasols, and Pipe Cleaning 

One of Czechia’s major breweries approached us with a situation where their sales representatives were buried under paperwork. They were resolving standard beer or soft drink orders via their mobile phones (often calling the brewery office while driving, asking how much a client had ordered) and they had to copy the handwritten data from paper into the system. “There were mistakes in the records and the orders were taking a long time to complete. It regularly happened that a sales representative drove around with filled out paperwork for two days. That often meant the brewery was fulfilling a Tuesday order as late as Thursday,” explains Pavel Tupec, Hyverr CEO. 

The sales representatives’ situation was made even more complicated by the specifics of working in the hospitality business. Apart from their standard agenda, they had to monitor the following information in their head, on paper, or in Excel: 

• the restaurateurs’ credit history,

• rental of taps, parasols and other equipment 

• or regular pipe sanitation, which must be performed by a specialized company a few times a week.

“It was even more complicated because of the various types of customers. There are different rules for pubs which only serve our client’s beer as opposed to restaurants where our client supplies only non-alcoholic beverages,” explains Tupec. 

The Brewery Approached Us through a Referral, We Soon Discovered Problems with Their Shipping

We had already made a similar application for one distributor of tobacco products. We arrived for our meeting at the brewery and found out that, apart from sales, they also needed to streamline their beer shipping and delivery. “The driver would often arrive at a restaurant where the innkeeper informed them they were short on money from last night’s profits – and that they would take two kegs less than they had ordered. This was possible to do, but required a lot of paperwork,” explains Tupec, adding that:

• the drivers had to constantly monitor the number of kegs in order to accurately deduct the deposit,  

• the deliveries were behind schedule,

• sometimes a keg went missing (their reusable packaging is expensive),

• and if the driver happened to be stopped by a customs officer, they had to evidence the exact amount of beer they were carrying. 

That is why we decided to make two applications – one for the sales representatives, and one for the drivers. 

Being Out in the Field Is Necessary for a Streamlined Application 

We spent a number of shifts with sales representatives and drivers in order to map out their needs and work processes. We summed up the tasks in wireframes and a target concept document. “It also consists of development diagrams which exactly describe what a sales representative or driver ought to do, and what screen in the application will pop up at them,” explains Tupec. These include dozens of possible scenarios because:

• a “brewery-branded” restaurant requires a different approach than a regular restaurant, where they have various beers from various breweries on tap, 

• a sales representative proceeds differently during an acquisition meeting than during an initial visit, where they are only testing the potential for partnership. 

We also developed a way to connect both applications with the company system for sales management, defined the project’s milestones, drafted a road map, and got to work developing it.

Salespeople and Drivers Have Done Away with Paperwork, Delivery Is Faster, and Not a Single Keg Gets Lost

We programmed both applications in Java, and they both work on the Android operating system. We also programmed a bridge for integrating them with the company system. 

In terms of hardware, the application runs on:

• classical smartphones for sales representatives,

• tablets for drivers.

If there is need for traditional paper documentation, it is also possible to connect a thermal printer. 

The application for sales representatives processes and monitors customer data. “The sales representative can check a customer’s credit history, orders, or make sure that a specialized company has cleaned their pipes. If the proprietor hadn’t done that, they broke the contract and the brewery would stop providing them with beer,” says Pavel Tupec, adding that all information is available in real time. 

Drivers also did away with paperwork. “Nowadays, they can do everything through the application, and even sign with it. The driver always sees exactly what they are carrying, and not a single keg gets lost along the way,” concludes Tupec. 

We Can Develop an App for Your Salespeople or Drivers Too

If you are thinking about a similar solution to the one which streamlined the brewery’s operations, contact us. We will gladly present possibilities free of charge and propose an optimal road map. Sales processes and logistics are different in each company, and the apps must fit your particular sphere of work, not the other way round. 

Contact Petr Pavliš, Business Development Manager at Hyverr, at petr.pavlis@hyverr.com or give him a call at +420 776 629 083.