After decades working in beverage alcohol, two industry veterans set out to solve one of the three-tier system's most persistent data challenges.
For beverage alcohol suppliers, having data has rarely been the problem. Making sense of it all is another story.
Between distributor depletion reports, ERP systems, pricing structures, and trade spend analysis, suppliers have access to enormous amounts of information about their business. Yet much of that information remains disconnected, leaving sales, finance, and operations teams struggling to develop a complete and consistent picture of wholesale market performance.
It's a challenge Andrew and Mark witnessed and addressed repeatedly throughout their combined 30-plus years working in the beverage alcohol industry.
Across suppliers of different sizes and markets, they encountered the same fundamental problem. Critical business data existed across multiple systems, formats, and spreadsheets, but there was no straightforward way to bring it all together.
The result was an industry accustomed to spending significant time and resources reconciling information before it could be used to make business decisions.
Rethinking the Traditional Approach to Beverage Alcohol Data
Historically, suppliers looking to consolidate their wholesale data faced a complicated and costly path. Building a comprehensive data foundation typically required custom integrations, specialized engineering resources, significant upfront investment, and ongoing maintenance.
For many organizations, the cost and complexity of developing that infrastructure made comprehensive wholesale visibility difficult to achieve.
After decades of working directly with beverage alcohol suppliers, both internally and as consultants, to address these challenges through individualized solutions, Andrew and Mark recognized an opportunity to take a different approach to one of the industry's most persistent problems.
Rather than requiring each supplier to build and maintain its own data infrastructure, they envisioned a platform that could deliver those same foundational capabilities through a depletion-first subscription model designed specifically around the complexities of beverage alcohol distribution.
That vision became DataBacon, a data automation platform developed to give beverage alcohol suppliers end-to-end visibility into wholesale performance.
Decades of Industry Knowledge, Built Into One Platform
Unlike general-purpose business intelligence solutions, DataBacon was developed around the unique data challenges of the three-tier distribution system.
The platform automates the collection, organization, and integration of critical business information, including distributor depletions, ERP and financial data, pricing, and trade spend.
By connecting information that traditionally resides in separate systems, DataBacon helps suppliers establish a more consistent, reliable foundation for understanding sales performance, evaluating market activity, and making financial and operational decisions.
The subscription model also represents a departure from the traditional custom-development approach, making purpose-built data infrastructure accessible without requiring suppliers to assemble their own engineering teams or develop integrations from scratch.
A Different Approach to Wholesale Visibility
As beverage alcohol suppliers face increasing pressure to manage margins, evaluate distributor performance, and make faster decisions across markets, the ability to work from accurate, connected data has become increasingly important.
For DataBacon's founders, the objective was to address a problem they had spent much of their careers navigating - the disconnect between having business data and being able to use it effectively.
Their solution brings decades of firsthand industry experience into a standardized, automated platform designed to eliminate much of the manual work traditionally required to understand wholesale performance.
Learn more about the founders, their industry experience, and the origins of DataBacon at DataBaconTech.com/about.