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Boston Beer Company: How Brew Hub became the key ingredient to sales success
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About Boston Beer Company
The Boston Beer Company is one of the largest and most respected brewers in the United States. Since 1984, the business has offered high quality products to its drinkers, pioneering not only craft beer, but also hard cider, hard seltzer and hard tea. Core brands include household names such as Samuel Adams and Truly Hard Seltzer.
The challenge: Comms bottlenecks and information inefficiencies
The largest part of Boston Beer Company’s workforce is the Sales department. These are the people who collaborate with wholesalers, retailers, and other key stakeholders. Ensuring they have easy access to the information they need is vital, especially with leadership clear that moving fast is core business priority.
However, engagement survey results – which had both data and thousands of qualitative comments – showed that people weren't getting the information they needed, As a result, they felt disconnected.
The solution? Brew Hub: Information available on tap
Exclusive research by Unily has shown the staggering economic cost of communication and information gaps, and this is something Boston Beer Company has been keen to avoid.
With multiple brands to manage, programs to execute, and best practices to share, Emily and her team enlisted Unily to be a single source of truth. Unily’s performance in Gartner’s Critical Capabilities report – where it ranks first for all use cases including Employee Communications and Knowledge Services – is a clear indicator of why it’s a platform of choice for enterprises that want to instill agility across their organization.
Following the launch of Brew Hub, Emily and her team launched the Brew Hub Sales Site. This houses up-to-date information on everything the department needs, including:
- Key sales dates
- Wins and opportunities
- Sales programs
- Brand guidelines
- Best practices
- Cultural milestones such as birthdays and work anniversaries
The perfect pour: Streamlining business-critical processes
Having a one-stop-shop has also streamlined the company’s Annual Business Planning. This takes place in the last quarter of each year, where wholesale partners are met with to create goals for the following year. As Emily explains, it’s a process which has become a lot smoother with the Brew Hub Sales Site.
Not only is this a more efficient way of working, but it improves the ability of the Sales team to achieve their goals - specifically in prepping for Market Planning Meetings with wholesale partners to kick off the upcoming year.
Bubbling up: Increasing employee engagement
The Boston Beer Company Team has also launched Unily’s social intranet features as a lever to drive motivation and sales performance.
A recent example was a competition to drive sales of the company’s Ready To Drink (RTD) products. Coworkers were invited to post pictures of these products being displayed at and retail – an example of healthy competition which incentivizes sales coworkers to share their successes.
With over 150 comments posted, this has been Boston Beer Company’s most engaging campaign to date – and another example of how employee engagement can drive strategic business goals.
The perfect blend: Leadership buy-in and interdepartmental alignment
With 92% adoption amongst the Sales team and 81% overall adoption, it’s clear that the platform is highly valued by coworkers. Emily states that one of the key reasons for this high adoption has been support from the Sales Leadership Team.
There’s also excellent alignment between departments, with Emily believing “Brew Hub would not be successful without Internal Comms and IT working together.” Regular calls and meetings mean priorities are categorized, and Unily’s targeting capabilities are used to ensure coworkers see what’s relevant to them.
Crafting the future: Bold new possibilities
Brew Hub will continue to be a key communication driver for Boston Beer Company. The business is integrating its systems even closer with Unily – this includes making use of AI-powered ChatBot functionality, also known as Brew Bot, which enables enterprises to create a conversational layer over their knowledge base.
After experimenting with several different intranet solutions over the years, Brew Hub has emerged as the platform that truly resonates with Boston Beer Company's needs.