Brew Talks CBC 2023: Interview with Next Glass

Justin Kendall [00:05] Thanks everyone for joining us live here in Nashville and virtually during this Brewals meetup in Nashville during the Craft Brewers conference. My name is Justin Kendall and I'm the editor of Brewbound. And Bretox wouldn't be possible without the support of our sponsors. So, let's introduce one of them right now, one of our presenting sponsors, Ollie by Nextglass. Ollie is a software built to manage inventory, customer relationships, and order and payment processing, all in one place. Joining me now is Dustin Jeffers, a solutions consultant for Next Glass. Thanks for being here, Dustin.

Speaker 2 [00:42] Thanks for having me.

Justin Kendall [00:44] So Dustin, for those unfamiliar with

Speaker 2 [00:47] Ollie,

Justin Kendall [00:48] give us a rundown of what it does.

Speaker 2 [00:51] Sure. Ollie is an ERP system, uh, that can handle everything from your raw materials, uh, to make the beer, to invoicing your finished goods to your customers. Uh, so Ollie is broken out into Ollie Ops and Ollie Order, uh, so we can provide, uh, the best and most appropriate solutions, uh, for any size and style brewery.

Justin Kendall [01:12] So tell us some of those differences between Ollie Ops and Ollie Order.

Speaker 2 [01:16] Yeah, so Ollie Ops handles everything from your raw material procurement, uh, to when you actually package your finished goods. Uh, and then it can go over to Ollie Order. It takes your finished goods and allows you to allocate those to products in the warehouse, uh, gives you the ability to invoice customers, uh, create BOLs, uh, if you're a self-distributing brewery, uh, be able to create pick lists for your warehouse team, uh, and then also has a built-in CRM system, uh, for your sales team to use.

Justin Kendall [01:47] And you don't need to do both, right? That's my understanding.

Speaker 2 [01:51] Yeah, you don't have to do both. Uh, it's great for any size brewery, uh, so, if you just need the operation side, uh, we can handle that. Uh, if you are self-destroying, deal with a lot of distributors, uh, or have a large sales team, uh, then you can really utilize a lot of the stuff in Aliorder. Uh, the nice part is both systems also integrate with QuickBooks online, uh, so we can also handle your accounting, whether you're just an ops, in order, or in both.

Justin Kendall [02:20] And let's get into some of the differences between Ollie and its competitors. Can you break down sort of how Ollie differentiates itself?

Speaker 2 [02:29] Yeah, I feel like one of the first big differences is the parent company that you mentioned, uh, is Next Glass. Uh, so with Nextglass being the parent company to Ali, uh, we have a ton of experience in the brewing industry with the other solutions we have. Uh, so that includes stuff like Untapped, Beer Advocate, uh, Hop Culture, and Osner. Uh, so besides having the experience from all those teams with those solutions, uh, we also have a lot of industry veterans now that work closely with the Ali product. Uh, so these individuals worked in different parts of the brewery, whether it be actual brewers, uh, heads of operations, sales, and even some founders. Uh, so, this experience allows us, uh, to have great insights, uh, when designing new features in Ali. Uh, we know firsthand how hard it can be, uh, to keep up with accurate and up to-date information with your brewery, whether you're on spreadsheets or some of the other solutions out there. Uh, so, we strive to make Ali easy for brewers to input their info, um, in the system, and that, that way, um, in my past experience, I've always worked with a lot of other systems. Uh, on the operation side. At times, I felt like a glorified data inputter, um, instead of being able to actually go in and analyze all that data that my team was putting into the system. Uh, so, I feel like we really can handle that, make it easier to use on the brewer side, uh, so that way, director of ops and owners, uh, can really analyze the information instead of just inputting them, so they can make the best decisions possible.

Justin Kendall [04:01] Yeah, you've had some experience with it brewing, and so running a brewery. So how critical is it to get that real-time cogs, the revenue, all of that, all in one place?

Speaker 2 [04:13] Yeah, it's very hard, um, especially on spreadsheets, it's hard to keep up to date info. Uh, it's also difficult to look at your past information. Uh, and then in some other systems, uh, a lot of times, my brewers would be writing stuff on brew sheets, uh, and then hand it to me at the end of the day, and then I would be in a mad scramble to input everything all the time. Uh, so, that's why one of our goals is to really, uh, make it easy for the brewers to use, and put that data. Uh, and then that way you can have accurate looks on your current cogs, whether that be the actual raw materials coming in, uh, or your finished goods cogs. Um, I think it's harder and harder, uh, especially for smaller breweries that may not think they need this to compete in the, uh, distribution that's going on today. Uh, so it may seem like a great idea, uh, to start distribution, get more beer out there, produce more beer. Uh, but if you don't have a true accurate look on what your current up to-date cogs are, uh, for your finished goods, uh, it can be really scary going out into distribution. Uh, besides just other beers, you are also competing against, uh, RTDs, Kraft seltzers, uh, non-alcoholic beer. Uh, so, it may seem great, go to Distro, uh, but the last thing you want to do can be really detrimental, uh, to go into distribution with a loss leader. Uh, you may see your cogs for your finished goods on one batch, and you know what your profit is, uh, but it's really important to see how that cost of goods changes over time between batch to batch, see if you're trending up, trending down, uh, or if you're all your costs are staying the same. Uh, so, I really think Ali can help breweries do that. Uh, and see some of those trends and variants.

Justin Kendall [06:01] Are there misconceptions or preconceived notions that folks might have with, uh, software like this?

Speaker 2 [06:07] Yeah, uh, we talked to a lot of brewers and owners, uh, that think that they're too small for a system. Um, that's one of the nice parts about Ollie, uh, since it is broken out into two systems, uh, you can have just Oliops, handle some of, uh, those initial batches, see what your finished cost of goods are, um, and then as you grow, uh, as you distribute more, build a sales team, then you can bring in Ali order. When we talked to breweries and breweries that I've been a part of, uh, the most efficient ones have a system, uh, in place before they actually need it. Uh, I've been a part of breweries that have had rapid growth, and during that time, the last thing you want to do is implement a system. Uh, you want that already in place, uh, because with that rapid growth, you're going to run into issues with quality, and you want to make sure that your first, uh, product out to the market. In mass, uh, is up to your quality standards. Uh, so we want you to focus on the beer and not on your ERP system.

Justin Kendall [07:07] What are some of the biggest needs that you're hearing from your clients now?

Speaker 2 [07:12] I feel like, um, some of the biggest needs, uh, is stuff that we've already, uh, kind of mentioned, uh, knowing what their true costs are, knowing what their inventory is. Uh, cash flow is always an issue with breweries. Uh, so they want to make sure they have enough product on hand, um, whether it be on the finished goods side or the raw material side, uh, and not keeping a lot of inventory. Uh, so, we can help a lot with that, uh, with raw material forecast tools, um, a lot of different reports you can run on your sales side, see where your beer is going. Uh, and then also, It's getting to be a more tech-driven world. Uh, so the nice part with us, again, with Next Glass being the parent company, is we have a lot of other solutions for breweries, uh, that they can use, uh, and start tying everything together.

Justin Kendall [08:02] Are there other common threads that you're seeing across your client base?

Speaker 2 [08:08] Yeah, more and more, uh, breweries have had to start adding other products, uh, on, whether it be seltzers, um, meads, ciders, uh, and us being able to keep cost of goods, uh, for raw materials, uh, across all of those different, uh, different products, uh, has definitely been something that's been requested. Uh, also, uh, kind of what you are talking about today on Brewals, uh, the multi-taproom, uh, multi-production facilities, uh, again, distribution is getting harder and harder. Uh, so breweries are starting to become more inventive on ways to get their products, uh, to customers. Uh, so we're definitely striving, uh, every day, uh, talking to breweries, plus our industry knowledge on ways to help them, uh, especially with all of this multi-location issues.

Justin Kendall [09:01] Having that brewing experience, what are some uh of, of the keys to creating a a brewer-friendly software program?

Speaker 2 [09:10] Yeah, so, it's really nice, uh, that Darren, uh, who was the head products engineer, um, on Olly Ops, uh, he was a brewer at BJ's, uh, for a little more than 10 years. Uh, so, we're truly built for brewers by brewers. Uh, plus, you have, uh, people like myself, uh, on board, uh, and a couple others as well that actually worked in a brewery. Uh, so when we go in and decide on what next we want to build, uh, on our platforms, uh, we have a lot of industry knowledge. Uh, we all run fake breweries on the system, so we do our day to day actions, give feedback to the development team, uh, and then also, before it gets released to our customers, uh, we go in and try to break it. Uh, so, It's one of my fun parts of my day, uh, going in, trying to break the system, play with new tools, uh, and giving feedback on how this would have helped me.

Justin Kendall [10:03] It's, uh, like a video game, you're gonna be a virtual brewer.

Speaker 2 [10:07] Yeah, and I get paid for it.

Justin Kendall [10:08] It's great. That's not a, that's not a bad thing either. So, uh, final question for you, and you sort of alluded to this earlier, how much integration do you see there being across the next class family in the future?

Speaker 2 [10:22] Yeah, we have a lot of those other solutions for breweries, just besides the ERP system. Uh, so Untapped for Business can handle your physical and digital menus. Uh, Osner can handle memberships and online sales. Uh, plus we have Untapped data and insights, uh, that can give breweries some visibility into when the customer is actually drinking the beer. Instead of just when accounts are buying it, uh, or when customers are buying it from grocery stores. Uh, so, starting to pull in all of this other information we have, other tech solutions, uh, our goal is to start bringing them all together, uh, now that we have all of these different solutions under our umbrella, uh, and really provide a one-stop shop for breweries.

Justin Kendall [11:05] Dustin, thanks for doing this, and thanks for supporting the Brew Talks. Uh, where can folks find out more about Ollie?

Speaker 2 [11:12] Yeah, uh, easiest way is to go to get Oli.com, uh, and you can sign up, and you can get us, uh, on a demo, and we can show you the system and how we can help you.

Justin Kendall [11:22] Well, check it out, and stay tuned for more from Brew Talks.