Choosing Wine Industry Software
This guide will help you navigate the landscape of software options available to run your wine business.
Whether your are a wine retailer, merchant, importer, or distributor, we reveal what choices you have, what’s worked (and not worked) for others, common questions and what return on investment you might expect from your new wine industry software.
Why is software important for a wine business?
Whether you are just starting up a wine business, or are an established company needing to operate more efficiently or grow, technology plays a crucial role in your future. The wine industry faces unique inventory control challenges with its non-conventional back-and-forth sales/purchase workflow, which can be difficult for generic management software and accounting systems to handle effectively.
The right wine industry software supports efficiency, cost management, growth and brilliant customer service. For a deeper understanding of the financial implications of not having the right software, read our article The impact of hidden costs on a wine business.
What are your options for wine industry software?
Below we lay out possible software options in the current market.
If you want some help deciphering the abundance of software related acronyms, access your FREE GLOSSARY HERE.
Build your own
It can be tempting to create a custom platform that will address the unique needs of your wine business. It requires time, financial investment and resources, which can be challenging for wine businesses whose expertise lies in wine trading, not software development.
It is possible to build your own and some have, however the commitment to maintain and develop the software has proven to be difficult for many and even more challenging to then walk away from when you’ve invested a significant amount of time and resources building it.
Run multiple software systems
A majority of businesses we speak to have, or still use spreadsheets to some degree and these work for many basic, yet essential forms of organising information within a company. This is an instantly available, low cost option. Manual data entry works when operations are simple or small, but it’s important to consider accuracy, time spent, and potential errors. As operations grow, manual entry becomes cumbersome, making it difficult to manage complex pricing structures for importers, operate client wine storage, track inventory, and generate comprehensive reports.
Luke Raffety, Head of Operations for Turville Valley Wines, explains, ‘We were paying for WineSuite, we were also keeping manual ledgers, we had a separate finance package, so in total we had four different pieces of software running because we couldn’t trust the data. For a small business it was a nightmare and the staff didn’t have faith in the software. Moving to the Hub has been a very seamless process and confidence in the software and the data that it has provided is now allowing us to get rid of all the extra unnecessary pieces of software. The fact the APIs talk to Xero means we’ve almost removed all of the manual entry points that we had previously.’
Accounting systems such as Sage or Xero are popular and necessary for accounting, however can fail to handle certain activities, unless linked to a business management system that understands the wine industry and permits behaviours such as constantly changing prices for the same product name and non-conventional types of inventory, like en primeur and virtual stock.
Trading and selling online involves many platforms (i.e. Liv-ex, Vivino or an eCommerce website) meaning inventory management becomes critical.
A high performance multi-channel approach allows you to trade with confidence knowing your stock positions are accurate and up-to-date.
For eCommerce specifically, there are many great software choices, but consider what the financial impact is if running this as a separate business entity, versus operating eCommerce as an additional sales channel within one single mastered inventory system.
Everything under one roof
Here’s a tricky one. Yes ideally everything under one roof sounds great. Big names in traditional ERP (enterprise resource planning), such as Oracle, Microsoft and SAP are designed to manage the whole of business operations with an all-in-one system. The wine industry is complex and loaded with idiosyncrasies that generic software is forced to be manipulated to work around. Wine-specific bolt-ons can try and bridge the specialist gap, but ultimately it is not a seamless experience of all-in-one and the more systems are customised to fit the wine industry, the more forced the solution becomes…not to mention the outrageous cost implications.
Paul Hammond, Co-founder of IG Wines, found, ‘We looked at some of the ERP systems from the larger companies, Microsoft etc, but the problem there is there’s no industry knowledge, so these people are building platforms for an industry that has high value, fragile cases that have been in the market for a long time and move everywhere and that’s very tricky and no offense, but these people aren’t in the industry, so that’s a disadvantage to them immediately.’
Stuart Dale, Founder of Crop & Vine comments, ‘It blew my mind the systems people had used, proprietary systems or systems that were off-the-shelf from big companies that have been moulded, tweaked and manipulated to do something for which they weren’t intended – so the headline might be great, but the reality is you change one thing then downstream everything changes and you need a constant monitoring system.’
The Wine Owners team investigated the Forrester article, which explores the end of ERP in favour of DOPs (digital operating platform), an interesting read for anyone exploring ERP solutions.
Software built for the wine industry
It may have become clear by this point that the nuances of the wine industry demand an industry-specific technology solution.
The core platform exists to enable and ease daily operations for a wine business, from client storage, inventory management, brokerage, shipping, transfers, multi-channel selling and with an understanding of wine references, duty and tax regimes, differing stock types, extended periods of time between order and delivery, split cases and consignment tasks. The list of specialist activities goes on, but having a system designed to understand and simplify these operations from one place, uniting seamlessly other best-in-class and industry-dedicated platforms, makes all the difference for a wine business wanting to position themselves for future success.
Industry perspectives
Hear what others in the industry have to say regarding industry-specific software.
Wine Software ROI (Return On Investment)
In our article we explore various wine business activities and the financial breakdown surrounding them when impactful technology is applied. Trusting your instinct and hearing first-hand reviews from others is great, but there’s nothing like quantifying your potential investment.
Beyond financial considerations like upfront costs and monthly fees, the analysis emphasises the potential for significant bottom-line impacts through improved margin calculations, streamlined supply chain management, and enhanced multi-channel sales capabilities. It underscores the importance of minimising errors, optimising client storage services, and leveraging virtual stock sources to maximise sales opportunities.
Ultimately, the ROI calculation extends beyond immediate financial gains to encompass broader benefits like operational efficiency and customer relationship improvements. Read more about calculating ROI on your wine software investment.
Grab your FREE wine software audit checklist
Designed to help you determine the criteria of functions and priorities best suited to your business ambitions, so you can research and short list options with confidence, book demos and ask the questions that matter to you.
Should I hire a software consultant or go DIY?
It’s certainly a good idea to consider hiring a consultant, for both the research and selection phase, as well as the implementation (it’s actually critical to consider a dedicated IT-savvy implementation project manager for some software options where advanced technical IT knowledge is required for data migration and system set up).
Often software consultants have experience using systems first-hand, are up-to-date with providers and their news and know the solutions well. Two things to bear in mind; consultants will have favourites due to relationships and past experiences, so make sure all options are being considered and second, the wine industry is so nuanced, that only a consultant that truly understands the complexities of the wine world will really understand what a wine business will need from its management system.
If you are taking the task on in-house, a good process is to:
- Be clear about your business goals and how much time, resource and budget you have.
- List criteria in terms of priorities, functions and potential other tools, ie Xero, eCommerce, POS
- Research options and speak to peers for reviews and experiences
- Short list and get demos
- Understand timeline, costs and likely ROI
After you’ve made your choice, it’s important to prepare your business, your data and your team, so you’re ready and excited to embrace the new opportunity and potential that comes with implementing the right wine industry software for your business.
A Software Partner
Choosing a software partner rather than just a software provider is important. Yes, a solution may be purpose-built for the wine industry as we know it today, but are they listening to the demands of the market and wine business finding new ways to operate within that market?
Violaine Manac’h, Co-founder of Halo Wines describes, ‘When I researched, I really wanted a system that was great at the moment, but had the possibility of evolving as well – a business that was listening to the customers and reacting to our demands.’
How will your software partner evolve the solution alongside you and help shape the future of the wine industry?