The beverage industry is changing faster than ever: consumers are buying differently, the hospitality sector is seeing erratic ordering patterns, regulations regarding excise taxes and returnable containers are becoming stricter, and margins are under pressure. For beverage distribution centers, wholesalers, and breweries, modern technology is therefore not a luxury but a strategic necessity.
Technology brings efficiency and capability
A modern IT environment with Cloud ERP, integrated POS, excise tax management, distribution modules, and real-time reporting is the key to working efficiently and in compliance with regulations in a beverage industry that relies on volume, speed, legal compliance, and accurate record-keeping—and that can only thrive with technology that evolves alongside it.
Stricter regulations, volatile demand, logistical challenges, and pressure on margins call for greater visibility and automation. These are the main challenges that beverage distributors and breweries face today.
Excise taxes, EADs, reporting requirements, proof of delivery, labeling, and traceability: it’s an administrative burden that consumes time every day and poses risks. Mistakes are costly—both financially and legally. That’s why automation is essential.
Returnable bottles, crates, returns, reconciliations… Returnable containers are a logistical and administrative nightmare when you try to keep track of everything manually. Without IT support, you lose profit margins, time, and an overview.
Cafés, restaurants, sports clubs, and neighborhood grocery stores place orders irregularly, depending on the season, events, or the weather. This requires smart inventory planning, fast delivery, and flexible pricing tiers.
Strict rules apply to both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. Expiration dates, lot numbers, and product recalls must be managed flawlessly. Traceability from production to delivery is essential.
Bottles, bins, pallets, mixed pallets, multi-stop deliveries… The physical flow of goods is demanding and prone to errors. Without automated picking, scanning, and route planning, you lose efficiency and waste time.
The industry is price-sensitive. Transportation, energy, and procurement costs are rising. As a result, maintaining control over margins, contract prices, promotions, and inventory turnover is crucial.
More beverage distributors are combining brick-and-mortar stores, deliveries to restaurants and bars, phone orders, and B2B online stores. This requires integration between the point-of-sale system, online store, invoicing, and inventory.
In the coming years, the industry will shift from manual processes to integrated, cloud-based, and data-driven workflows.
Digital reporting, automated EAD processing, and error-free traceability are becoming the norm.
Greater automation in warehouses, scanning, picking orders, and route optimization.
Restaurant and club customers want to be able to place orders 24/7, using their own prices and ordering standards.
Inventory turnover, margins, return rates, purchase volumes by customer segment… BI is becoming strategically important.
Dynamic price groups, excise tax processing, promotions, and supplier changes are increasingly being automated.
Optimization of transportation, returnable container management, waste reduction, and reusable packaging.
“Dynamics 365 & DrinkMaster 365 are at the heart of our organization. Point-of-sale transactions are seamlessly transferred to accounting, and our B2B data is fully integrated.”
Vanuxeem has relied on Alistar for IT and administrative automation for over 20 years. In 2008, it expanded this with DrinkMaster 365.
Alistar has a deep understanding of the challenges facing the beverage industry. We help beverage distributors and breweries organize processes related to excise taxes, returnable containers, logistics, margins, and omnichannel sales in a smarter way and manage them more efficiently.
Choose an ERP solution that’s right for your beverage distribution center, wholesale business, or brewery: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, enhanced with our industry-specific solutions for excise taxes, returnable containers, distribution, and POS.
Together, we are building a scalable IT infrastructure that enables sales, logistics, inventory, hospitality clients, and administration to work together seamlessly.
