ANHEUSER-BUSCH, MILLER REALIGNING FIELD SALES WITH LOCAL EMPHASIS

JAMES TENSER

NEW YORK -- The nation's top two brewing companies are transforming their field sales structures to push marketing and sales decision-making authority closer to their customers.

Anheuser-Busch, St. Louis, said that after a year of study it is scrapping its 40-year-old five-region field sales system and replacing it with a series of 10 national sales units it says will be more responsive to the needs of customers and consumers.

Miller Brewing, Milwaukee, will shift this week from five selling regions to a structure of 19 market areas under three regional vice presidents under the umbrella of its year-old Service 2000 initiative.

If the two structures will be slightly different, the goals in each case are similar. Both companies say they want to push greater authority for beer marketing down to the local market level, strengthen their wholesaler networks and emphasize retailer sales support.

In Miller's case that authority will extend as far as profit and loss responsibility for the general managers in charge of each market area, said Michael Hennick, spokesman.

The changes at Miller reflect a recognition that "there isn't a national beer market -- just a series of local markets," said Hennick.

He added, "Most of our general managers are already in place. Beginning this month they will start to organize their own market plans for their market areas."

About a year ago, Miller Brewing launched Service 2000, a comprehensive program intended to improve its sales and distribution. The program's goal is to make Miller a "world-class customer-focused organization and push the marketing decision-making process closer to the retailer," Hennick said.

Miller is involving its distributors

in the process as well. "The intent is to develop market plans with a general manager and a cluster of distributors," said Hennick.

James Hunter, vice president of sales for Anheuser-Busch, said that his company's restructuring is designed to place sales resources closer to local markets.

"With the move toward sophisticated consumer marketing at the retail level, we will now be poised to concentrate on innovative and creative methods for meeting and exceeding sales goals of our wholesalers and retailers," said Hunter.

Prime motivators for the move are a changing beer marketing environment with increased competitive pressure, price discounting and brand proliferation, he said.

Anheuser-Busch's new sales units will be headquartered in Atlanta; Boston; Chicago; Detroit; Houston; Kansas City, Kan.; Los Angeles; Memphis, Tenn.; Parsippany, N.J., and Seattle.

Concurrent with its announcement, Anheuser-Busch made two key executive changes. Mark Danner, formerly vice president of national retail sales, has been named vice president of field sales administration. Danner is succeeded in his former post by John Hanichak, who was most recently regional sales vice president for the North Central states.

Burt Flickinger III, consultant with A.T. Kearny, New York, said the changes should help Miller and Bud derive greater benefits from their "excellent" category management capabilities. "This allows them to work with retailers at further driving the category," he said.

"Both big guys have developed an ability to really leverage terrific advertising creative on a regional and mutual market basis. It gives them the capability to do what some people are calling co-marketing."

The new structures should allow more direct influence on marketplace decisions and cooperative efforts with distributors, he added. "In cases where distributor partners can fully use their marketing and trade-marketing resources, it can give the national brands the edge with the three chains in each market that generally control more than half of the ACV."