Modernising the Supply Chain for the World’s Largest Brewer

From a 10-bar usability pilot to a global deployment across 9 countries, Monstarlab worked with AB InBev to build the TapWiser, a mobile-first direct-to-business eCommerce platform that is reshaping the sales practices of the global CPG behemoth.

AB InBev is the world’s largest manufacturer and distributor of beer. We created a global product ecosystem to drive retailers of beer to purchase directly from ABI through digital channels, moving away from the less efficient process of manual purchasing. Monstarlab iterated and grew the ecosystem from a US MVP to a platform on five continents that transacts billions in revenue annually.

Changing How the Businesses Buy Beer

AB InBev expects their 30,000+ sales force to establish and grow profitable customer relationships while performing a widening array of account and marketing tasks, all while the company works towards a more automated future. Their customers expect a 1:1, on-demand relationship with their sales rep, with time to check their keg lines when they visit. Our solution - Tapwiser, a beautiful, easy-to-use app and web platform that enables ordering of AB InBev products in the style of B2C commerce apps where two previous enterprise-driven B2B apps had failed. To understand our user, we shadowed sales reps in St. Louis, New York, Mexico City and Buenos Aires to understand the value they provide to their B2B customers and identify the pain-points and opportunities that could be addressed by the platform - like easy access to invoice history.

The Solution

Based on our findings, we designed and built a fully-functional prototype and conducted in-person usability testing with bar and restaurant owners. We used our pilot learnings to refine the experience before the US launch, and fostered a program of continuous research and iteration as we expanded to each additional country. Along the way, we worked to integrate the local ordering and fulfillment backend into a unified global middleware, streamlining future updates and enhancing global scalability with each integration while laying the foundation for new commerce experiences in the future. We delivered a flexible infrastructure that scales by allowing market-specific integrations to easily swap in and out. This lowers the overall cost of adding the system to a new region while keeping training and optimisations to be consistent internationally.

One Unified Codebase, Multiple Regional Apps

We architected Tapwiser to have a single global codebase, efficiently sharing features and core maintenance, while allowing for custom regional features and local branding.

Global Middleware

Using Mulesoft, we built a global middleware to create scalable APIs that standardized disparate regional backend systems ranging from SAP to Salesforce to home-brewed local solutions, all augmented by a custom global CMS.

Leveraging the Power of Magento

To accelerate feature development, we employed a novel Magento-based website architecture that utilizes local backends through our middleware while taking advantage of Magento's advanced set of eCommerce features.

9 countries implemented the platform.
Billions in transactions annually.
Significantly higher reorder rate than competing solution.

About AB InBev

AB InBev is the world's largest beer company, brewing and distributing almost 1/3 of the world's beer every year with revenue in excess of US$50B annually. Based in Leuven, Belgium and with its global management office in New York City, AB InBev's 170,000 employees produce approximately 630 beer brands in 150 countries.

The Collaboration

Brewing a Long-Term Partnership

Monstarlab conceptualised, built, scaled and iterated the Tapwiser platform to reach billions in annual sales. We are also proud that once the platform was well established, we seamlessly transitioned it to another team for ongoing maintenance - setting them up for continued success. With our reputation for innovation, design and custom software delivery established, AB InBev and Monstarlab have partnered on a number of initiatives that leverage our top-tier skills, including forming the initial core engineering team of their global growth and innovation group, Zx Ventures.