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Challenges
- Australian Vintage Limited (AVL) is one of the largest wine producers in Australia and has been highly successful in the Australian and the UK market since 1992. Crushing up to 8% of Australia’s grape supply, AVL is the owner of the third largest winery in Australia where 100% of its energy is sourced from solar and wind power. In 2010 the company started to remotely sell its products to the Chinese market after receiving requests for its wines.
- Four years later AVL decided to set up an office in Hong Kong to be able to improve the structure of its distribution and sales set up in China and other Southeast Asian countries, and to establish its portfolio of brands in the region.
- “China was becoming a big market for us fast, but our distribution was messy”, explains Nicolas Heretiguian, General Manager Asia for AVL. “We were working with 31 distributors in 31 provinces that were all selling our wines for different prices and with different branding. The volume of our sales were going up, but we needed to structure the approach better. The only way to do that was to be present in the local market.”
- AVL didn’t want to make a big investment by setting up an office or full sales team, but was looking for an easy way to establish a light presence in China. That’s when AVL contacted ALTIOS with the request to host and support their representative in Shanghai.
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Solutions
- AVL’s employee in Shanghai was put on ALTIOS China’s payroll, which relieves AVL of a lot of administrative work and liability. Besides this, ALTIOS hosts their representative in our office in Shanghai, which means AVL didn’t have to set up a physical location themselves and commitment to a long term lease.
- “China is a really challenging and fast changing market, you need to be agile to survive here as an international company”, says Nicolas Heretiguian. “ALTIOS not only hosts our representative in China, but is always there to support us with anything we need. They have expertise on all fronts, from changing government policies we have to implement today-to-day services like getting business visas for our Australian team. Having a partner, like ALTIOS, that helps you to stay on your toes is key here.”
- While working together to grow AVL’s presence in China, the Australian winemaker is expanding fast in Southeast Asia as well. “We came to the conclusion we needed some extra hands and the first thing that came to mind was to extend our current partnership with ALTIOS by setting up a similar structure in Singapore”, Nicolas Heretiguian says. “It was as easy as setting up in China, which shows that ALTIOS has the local expertise to get you up and running fast anywhere in the world.”
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Results
- ALTIOS and AVL have been in a successful partnership for 4,5 years now. Unfortunately, AVL had to skill down their operation in China due to the new import restrictions the Chinese government introduced at the beginning of 2022 on products like wine, chocolate and coffee.
- “We are happy to continue working together from Singapore”, says Nicolas Heretiguian. “ALTIOS brings the best of two worlds together. They are an international company that understands your position as an international newcomer in a foreign market, but they have the knowledge, expertise and language skills of a local consultant. ALTIOS is the solution for small and midsize companies that want to get started anywhere in the world.”
Discover more about AVL Wines on: https://www.australianvintage.com.au/
