Case Studies

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Case Study:

Expanding Business in Berlin

food europe plv

A global FMCG corporate asked Pilot Lite to develop a go-to-market strategy to expand the sale of its snacks and beverages through alternative retailers unserved by mainstream distribution in Berlin.

The challenge

Our client was looking to extend the sales and distribution of its product portfolio beyond mainstream grocery stores and into independent traditional retail outlets. There are hundreds of thousands of untapped, uncalled-on retail outlets--from C-store hybrids, delis, cafes, co-working spaces, single and small chain independent stores, hotels and juice bars--that simply aren’t reached by traditional distribution. With limited internal resources to reach distribute to these outlets, the client challenged Pilot Lite to develop a comprehensive go-to-market strategy to target 10,000+ independent retailers in Berlin.

The solution

Pilot Lite recommended a complete secondary supply chain created by pulling product from their current distributor. We then organised a team on the ground to explore outlets and customers in their Tier 1 channel and mapped the uncalled-on universe of retail outlets outside the reach of mainstream distribution. In Berlin alone for example, we found 2,000 uncalled-on outlets.

Two full deployment plans were presented including a full internal client-run sales structure to reach this new market place. The client chose our standalone Pilot LIte Ventures team on the ground and selected a comprehensive list of Tier 1 outlets to sell into first. We also included selected business-specific channel partners as part of the go-to-market strategy for immediate deployment.  Marketing, sales and activation strategies were concurrently developed for the identified outlets and neighbourhoods. In the first phase, we generated over €2M in revenues for our client.