Woodberry Wine continued to strengthen its foundation and assure its future growth and success. The Woodberry Wizard, our business management system that we developed and launched in January of 2017, is now an integral part of the way we do business and widely considered to be a competitive advantage in the marketplace. This year, new strategic enhancements were made to the system, including sales route scheduling and glass pour tracking. Additionally, Microsoft’s Business Intelligence platform has been implemented which allows us to better mine the data we are collecting and make better, more informed business decisions while insuring that everyone in the organization has the information required to do an excellent job for our clients.
Today, our technology infrastructure, our open-minded and “can do” attitude, and our ever evolving and fresh portfolio are widely considered core strengths. Our marketing team and service focused back office and warehouse staff have placed Woodberry Wine as not only an innovator in the industry, but an innovative company that has Heart. The customer is the central focus of everything that we do.
We added 25 new brands to our portfolio in 2018, including 12 domestic producers. These investments continue to give the Michigan wine community quality new brands that have been carefully curated, adding interest and excitement to wine lists and retail sets, and ultimately gives the consumer greater choice.
We added five new warehouse staff to the team, three sales team members, and welcomed Joel Haio as our new Chief Financial Officer into our Company. 16 of our team members, a record number, visited suppliers and gained valuable professional experiences in Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Oregon, South Africa and Germany. Our commitment to personal and professional growth was fully evident in 2018.
In 2018 the Company grew sales and was profitable and we continue to re-invest in our future.
The customer remains the central focus of everything that we do. We will work hard to earn the title of our customer’s favorite distribution partner to work with. We will bring interesting and desirable wine brands to the market and help our customers move the product. We will commit ourselves to being “mistake free” and empower our team to immediately rectify a mistake should one occur. We will be pro-active and easy to do business with.
After five years of building out our systems, technology, marketing, leadership and sales teams, the Company’s 2019 goals overwhelmingly focus on market share and sales growth. We have the team to do it, and the systems and back office team to support it. We are ready to take another big step forward as a Company, and to partner with our customers and suppliers to help them be more successful than ever.
We are grateful for all of the support we received in 2018 and we look forward to growing together in 2019.
Respectfully,
Daniel F Glisky, Jr
CEO & Managing Partner
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