Blue Martini Down Under
Australia’s leading wholesaler of grocery, general merchandise, liquor and tobacco, Metcash Trading Limited Australasia, has chosen Blue Martini Channels to centralize the management of its products, pricing, promotions and rebates.
Blue Martini Channels, part of Blue Martini Software, Inc.’s eCRM application suite, is a complete channel management solution for maximizing revenues from channel partners and online marketplaces. The solution’s features will allow Metcash to:
- Create partner portals that provide resellers with all of the information and tools they need to sell Metcash products.
- Efficiently manage and deploy digital assets.
- Proactively communicate with partners via multimedia campaigns.
- Easily manage portals and other touch points to reach an unlimited number of international audiences.
Metcash plans to integrate Blue Martini Channels with its existing financial and fulfillment systems to create a single, consistent point of management and analysis for Metcash’s merchandising, customer information, online and offline sales and service. Implementation will begin within the month, and completion is expected in early 2002.
Metcash has three business units — IGA Distribution, Campbells Cash & Carry and Australian Liquor Marketers. In recent years, Metcash has undergone massive expansion, growing its market share to approximately 17 percent, largely through the acquisition of new distribution outlets.
Doug Sweeney, Metcash CIO said, “Dealing with more than 4500 franchisees in our IGA business unit alone, customer relationship management is understandably important to us. However we didn’t want an isolated CRM solution. In addition to providing better service across all business units, we wanted something that would manage and streamline our vast product catalogue, complex pricing structures and tens of thousands of promotions. The fact that Blue Martini integrates with our existing Peoplesoft and EXE systems was an important factor in our decision.”