Disruption in the supply chain webinars
Part 1 – Producer to consumer
Part 2 – How wineries interact with consumer
As part of the new webinar series, I was delighted to moderate these two sessions, making the most of both members’ diverse experience and knowledge but also drawing on outside expertise. These webinars aimed to look at the broader issue of what the wine world might look like in a post-Covid world. The first session had Ross Sleet looking at innovative and broad ways producers could meaningfully engage with both current and potential customers with particular emphasis on thinking beyond a production-led approach. Peter Hazlehurst, global head of Uber Money, was able to offer his non-industry views on how wine can embrace technology and use data more efficiently. Carol Reber shared the Duckhorn experience of direct-to-consumer marketing and selling; surely likely to become more commonplace even in very traditional wine-producing countries. Prof. Steve Charters MW shared his research and elaborated on how a crisis accelerates change. The second session looked at the wider issue of disruption in the wine business. Barry Dick MW discussed the specifics of moving wine from producer to consumer, and Leo Austin gave a trenchant analysis of the Chinese wine industry and the – often complex – ways wine is distributed in China. He shared his perception that, in an advanced social media age, wine will be selling via individuals, and this will shape brand development in addition to the more traditional modes of selling. Ernie Loosen also joined us to explain how his distribution has been affected both in Germany and the US. Both sessions offered insightful case studies across the wine world and how these are sure to evolve in the future, perhaps faster than ever before. I’m grateful to all the wonderful guests who were kind enough to give their time and share their experience with us.