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Pernod Ricard
Cheers To Digital Partnerships In The Corporate World
Pierre-Yves Calloc’h
Picture this—you’re one of the Wine & Spirits industry’s leading players and are working hard to develop a new competitive advantage. The last thing you’d want is probably to forge this with other companies you usually compete with or frequently negotiate with, right? Well, if it’s mutually beneficial, then why not?
At Pernod Ricard, it’s in our DNA to make new friends and take on new projects together. That’s why we are currently undergoing a massive, quite impressive digital acceleration, and we’ve started developing partnerships with various business partners. These joint tech projects with peers, corporations, and start-ups have opened the doors to faster project development, cost savings, and great collective intelligence.
Here are three examples of how we are leveraging partnerships in digital ventures:
1/ We’re co-developing technical capability–The Data Portal Alliance with JCDecaux
Since 2015, we have created and developed the Data Portal, a solution that enables companies to centralize all the data from their different entities worldwide in a single point, facilitating its use and sharing. We’ve established an innovative digital partnership with outdoor advertising giant JCDecaux to co-develop the solution (without data exchange) to speed up the development of the tool, a key asset for any business that has placed data at the heart of its business and growth strategy.
2/ We’re mutualizing in-market return of experience phases–the eB2B partnership with another drink giant: Heineken
eB2B, proposing B2B customers such as bars, restaurants, or liquor shops to place online orders to their favorite wholesalers, is a key priority and a fast-growing new venture for us at Pernod Ricard. We are convinced that partnerships with other companies providing complimentary products will be a significant accelerator for leadership. That is why we decided to look for companies with similar maturity, vision, ambition, and culture. We engaged with Heineken to share learnings, test our respective platforms in different market contexts, gain a share of the wallet and scale faster.
3/ Co-developing a new business– The Experience Distillery with Fever
Investing in start-ups is nothing new, and Pernod Ricard has been actively scouting and supporting start-ups for many years through our corporate venture arm Convivialité Ventures. But recently, we went even further by developing a whole new business in partnership with the start-up Fever. Fever is “the Netflix of experiences in your city”: it’s an event marketplace and a booking platform active in many places around the globe. Together, Pernod Ricard and Fever have launched The Experience Distillery, an event producer and experience ticket seller that leverages Fever’s key strengths to create great events gathering up to 30,000 people like in Brazil this October. The new business is simultaneously providing end-to-end services to brands who want to expose their product and messages to key consumers. Fully aligned with Pernod Ricard’s strategy of expanding beyond its core business, this development allows us to explore further the experience economy.
At Pernod Ricard, It’s In Our Dna To Make New Friends And Take On New Projects Together
Now, selecting the right partner is vital. The common trait between all partners we work with: we share the same values, the same mindset, a passion for technology applied to business, and the same high standards of compliance and sustainability. We ensure that we provide added value to each partner we work with.
We plan to develop many more of these partnerships as we continue to accelerate. Not only because they directly contribute to our growth but also because its part of who we are as “Créateurs de convivialité,” a French word that translates as “the art of being together and creating authentic moments of sharing.” Very important when you’re in the business of good times.
