Hello all,
what digital needs wine business has? It could seem a trivial question but in the last months I wondered it more time. If you have a big question, the better way is to divide it into little pieces, like a pie. One piece at time, you can eat all of it.
In this newsletter I’ll try to look about the winemaker’s needs in digital technology.
Wineries aren’t all the same, everyone has its personality, its market target, its wines and bottles it produce; here the point of view is the size of the vinery: it isn’t the same make wine from a little vineyard, with help of own family, and produce wine in a great wine industry, owner of many brand, hectars of vines in more States or Continents, may be.
A great wine house has an organization behind itself, marketing, financial, technical, … there are many Chief-everything-Officer and making wine is a carefully controlled process.
A little one hasn’t time to deal with digital affairs, they call any provider and install sensors, computers, pay annual subscription for marketing service and use them may be at 30%.
In both cases, into a bottle of wine there’re tenth of decisions, often made quickly, and people making wine are better than whatever AI.
Back to digital things, little winegrowers would need an help to manage all that technology, to explain them how to use it and show them how to start to make technology profitable. But, what kind of digital devices and platforms little wineries could use? Let’s list them.
Sensors for vineyards
Meteo stations
QR-code reader or RFID systems to manage the cellar
CRM to manage customers orders
Drones to map the vineyard
Vineyard managers use tech tools to improve crops and save water, reduce treatments, improve quality. But technology has a better impact on great vineyards than little ones, because these have little time to manage all those devices and tools. May be nobody taught how to use them, and many tricks are unknown, or the user interface is made with the engineer mind, and not with the winegrower one. How many software houses and hardware producers tested their interface with a grower?
What happens? It happens that customers don’t use in right way the technology they bought, and will wander them self: do I next year pay the subscription for the service? how many money and time I saved?
Firstly, before to sell software and hardware to a wine grower (or a farmer, it’s the same thing), HW/SW producer have to teach their customers (or potentials) what technology do and how to use it. It needs to show the process, the security procedures as firewall and backup and 2FA for access.
In my experience in technology, I obtained better result when customer or user was involved with the process, from project to use. And then they were the better testimonial and partner.
So, ask yourself: is my device, my software, designed keeping in mind the final user, their size and market? And, if you’re a winegrower, what would you like from your digital tools&devices? Tell me in the comments
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