Day in the Life: Bringing Budvar to Britain

One of the more fascinating stories in the British beer market in the past 10 years has been that of Budvar. Perpetually cast as the underdog during its long trademark battle against the brewer formally known as Anheuser-Busch, it has developed something of a cult status.

After all, there are not many lager bands widely available in the UK that can call on the unswerving loyalty of beer writer Roger Protz. To run the UK side of this business must seem to the casual observer to be as much fun as one could have in an office. But spend a day with Budvar UK's hugely amiable CEO Tony Jennings and a more complicated picture emerges.

He undoubtedly loves the job - but selling, marketing and operating a foreign brand in the UK market turns out to be a pretty tough gig in the current climate, what with increasing costs, a declining market and a head office back in the Czech Republic that demands nothing but the highest standards. And all of this in a highly competitive field.

8amRound of emails and phone calls

If there is one problem working for a brand whose head office is in central Europe it is the time difference with the UK.

"I spend a lot of my time corresponding with the brewery in Ceské Budûjovice (near Prague)," says Tony. "We are always discussing brewing volumes and financials. But of course their day starts at 6am UK time, which means I need to be at my desk at 8am getting through a lot of correspondence very quickly."10amSales and marketing meeting (with Joe Laventure, national accounts director, and Neville Hall, sales & marketing director)

The talks focus on where the brand currently sits in the market. First up is where discussions have got to with its two most pressing listing negations, namely with Geronimo and one of Mitchells & Butlers' retail brands.

"It gives us the opportunity to thrash things out. Just having the meeting between the three of us makes the decision-making process very quick," says Tony. Indeed, there are only 17 permanent members of staff in the organisation.

"This kind of deal comes up for discussion all of the time and so we need to keep to a consistent strategy and we are small enough to be able to do that. It allows us to keep tight controls on pricing."

While the discussions also focus on off-trade performance, the bulk of the meeting is centred on the bar and pub trade. This is not surprising, given that 53 per cent of the brand's business in the UK moves through the on-trade.

"Pubs are very important to us," adds Tony. "But we have to be clever how we sell to consumers. I think people are feeling the pressure right now in terms of how much they spend on a night out."

11.30amVisit to Madison Drinks wholesalers

Andy Wilson, who looks after South East sales, joins us as we visit one of Budvar's growing list of regional wholesalers. Tony says that, strategically, regional specialists can be of great benefit to the business. "We are starting to use local wholesalers all over the country. We also use Waverley and Matthew Clark. But we find the locals are very good for getting products like Budvar Dark out there.

"Andy's job is to keep monitoring the effectiveness of the local wholesalers - there is no point signing up to them if they do not add quality to our draught business."

1pmTrade visit to the Fleetwood, Bishopsgate, London

The Fleetwood belongs to Fuller's, a company which is increasingly fertile ground for the brand. "We are starting to get into more and more of the Fuller's business which is great - they are a fantastic business," says Tony. "We use Fuller's fonts and put our badge on it."

Here discussions move onto big issues affecting Budvar. For Tony there is one big issue: costs. "We have issues regarding importing the product from the Czech Republic as well as the increasing exchange rate for the Euro.

"Trade is tough and volatile. Our May trading was great, it far exceeded our trading forecasts, but it was less so in June.

"We are feeling the effects of people spending less money but it is not as though the supermarkets are raking in large profits either.

"If you want to move large volumes then you can, but is it worth doing at any price? We don't go in for massive discounts - we know the damage it could do to a brand like ours. We look to improve our profits year on year and make small improvements in our performance."3pmMeeting with Ian Moss (marketing manager)

We go back to HQ and Tony meets Ian Moss to discuss the performance of the brand and sales team at recent trade shows.

First up was a discussion of the sponsorship of the Cheltenham jazz festival - mainly an assessment of the contacts made. Ian says it was much more successful than last year's sponsorship. "A great value-for-money project," he adds.

Tony says he wants a full report of activity at Cheltenham as well as activity at the Beers of the World Live show and the Bar Show - how good the contacts are, what the chances of conversion are. What was the performance of the Budvar UK sales staff like at the event?

They also discuss their growing views that awards are the best way of increasing exposure for the brand - and they intimate they will be looking to ramp up awards presence across the board.

An hour later, my time with Tony is up.

However, for the CEO of Budvar UK it is back to the office for another round of emails and phone calls with sales teams and head office back in Ceské Budûjovice.