Sales assistant at Sabotage wines, Melbourne, Australia

Résumé du document

Sabotage Wines was founded in 2001 by the French winemaker David Baldet with the French style wines sourced from low yielding cool climate grapes from Victoria, in Australia. The principal customers are restaurants, wine bars and liquor stores. In this company, my mission was to sell the Sabotage wines, to promote its products, and to negotiate in direct liaison with my customers (face to face). I visited the places selected in order to seek new prospective customers... a very formative commercial mission!

In this report, I will describe the environment of my business in Australia and the general rules of the company in management, organization and marketing. Then I shall pass on to a more detailed description about my work at Sabotage, my mission, expectations and difficulties during this internship. Finally, I will delve into what I learnt on personal and professional bases during my internship.

Australia is the 5th biggest country in the producing wine world, with 13.6 hectolitres per year. The first ten wine producer countries in the world in the order: Italy, France, Spain, United States, Australia, Argentina, Germany, Portugal, Chile, and South Africa (origin: /Quid 2006).

To compare, the Australian consumer drinks 20.6 liters of wine annually, as against 59 liters in France and Italy, and 38 liters in Spain. In Argentina, a prolific wine producing country of the "new world", consumption has been pegged at 41 liters annually per consumer. Even the sake loving Japanese have been increasingly turning to wine.

The influence of the second wave of immigration in Australia made up of Italians, Greeks, Spaniards for whom the wine is an element of the traditional culture, was an essential factor for the surge in consumption. Moreover, the ageing of the population has tilted the statistics in favour of wine consumption. With concern mounting over general well being, health and weight, consumers are increasingly favouring wine in lieu of beer and spirits. Eight out of ten Australians drink wine in pubs and restaurants.

Consumption of wine is on the rise - Australians are traditionally beer drinkers. Beer drinking is an Anglo-Saxon tradition. In 1975, the average Australian drank 137 liters of beer annually, against a little less than 13 liters of wine. This situation changed considerably, in particular since the beginning of the decade. The ageing of the population and the role of the women in the work place reinforced the place of the wine. The media played a role in pushing up consumption by applauding the benefits of integrating wine for a healthier lifestyle. Wine tasting events, specialized magazines and viticultural tourism amplified curiosity and led to rise in wine consumption.

It is interesting to understand the wine strategy realized by Australians. In 1970, Australia produced only wines "of low range" and exported in small quantity its best type of grape varieties. Australian's vine growers have to compensate for their weak wine market by a collective will to conquer the world. So Australian have published (since 1996) their plans in a treaty of wine offensive strategy "Strategy 2025" (imitated by American with Wine Vision 2020) which aims to make this country, in thirty years, one of the largest wine countries in the world in terms of production.

Extraits

[...] Nevertheless, I did not have the responsibility for this mission easily; Mr Baldet also watched me in my work in the first times. We have to create many different situations where he played to make the customer, and asked me all the possible questions that I could meet. Mr Baldet was French, which was easier for me, especially at the beginning, when he had to explain me everything. He was present every time if I had any problems and gave me very quickly important responsibilities. [...]

[...] They used to ask me many questions about France in general; they wanted to know if I enjoyed my time in Australia, why I was here . I am sure that it was an asset for me to be French in order to carry out more sales because my interlocutors were sometimes in love with France, or then after a small discussion, he did not dare can be not to refuse to buy my wine!! The fact is that this cultural mixture has very positive sides in business; we can feel a great solidarity between everybody. [...]

[...] Supports of work I had a laptop of course, where I registered everyday all my work. The creation of a file, with Excel, where I indicated the name of the visited places, the telephone numbers and addresses. This table had to be completed very seriously because it was used to me at every moment as support of work the creation of a second table, called "management of the orders", which corresponded to the calendar of the orders, with the names, addresses, telephones, quantities, dates type of products to be delivered . [...]

[...] A thing is certain: to treat its customers well is a sure means to see them more faithful. To target in priority those which are most important in terms of potential, who are the most profitable. I also carried out statistics, each month about better sales, in classifying the customers according to their profitability and in underlining the best customers of Sabotage. A very different mission . Saturdays January I took part in the setting in bottles of the new vintage 2006 of Sauvignon Blanc. [...]

[...] The principal customers are restaurants, wine bars and liquor stores. In this company, my mission was to sell the Sabotage wines, to promote its products, to negotiate, in direct liaison with my customers (face to face). I visited the places selected in order to seek new prospective customers . a very formative commercial mission! In this report, I will describe first the environment of my business in Australia and the general rules of the company in kind of management, organisation and marketing. [...]