Ambev flexes its muscles and reduces time to market by half

The brewing dinosaur is managing to reinvent itself. With 4,000 employees in the technology area, more than in sales, the company launched in the last year about a hundred innovations for which it wants to be recognized beyond its management.

Five years ago, Ambev (ABEV3), the company that became a global business empire, invested to stimulate innovation, but it took months to see concrete results. These results have already become effective and reveal that Ambev leads the Brazilian beer market.
In addition, Ambev has launched 100 innovations in the last year, having halved its time to market. The equivalent of 20% of revenue now comes from products and services that did not exist three years ago, a period that also coincides with Jean Jereissati’s tenure as CEO of the company.

“These numbers are only possible because we are creating a culture of lots of testing and understanding that there are failures. We have to encourage Discovery-related errors through testing on small market bases. But that was unthinkable until a few years ago.”said Dani Waks, Ambev’s vice president of marketing.

“Several points that for a long time were Ambev’s great differential remain at the core, such as operational efficiency, mergers and acquisitions and management, but this is no longer just what sets us apart. There is still the culture of overcoming and dreaming big, but one that seeks to understand that it may be necessary to make mistakes and change the path to reach a certain goal.”reiterated the Ambev executive.

Ambev’s shares are still about 50% below the level of five years ago, but have accumulated gains of 35% in three years.
The brewing company also decided to promote new innovation actions in different areas horizontally. These initiatives range from the supply chain to the sales team, with the Innovation and Technology Center opened five years ago in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro as a link.

The new bet is a canned version of Brahma draft beer, a product presented at Web Summit Rio. “The launch was only possible thanks to the advancement of technology, the learning we had about the refrigerated chain, the existence of Zé Delivery, what is known as a delivery application for alcoholic beverages in Brazil, to guarantee the standard of delivery and the new aseptic processes in breweries.”said the manager.