BIECC

Members of the BIECC include some of the nation’s leading brewers, importers and distributors. Additionally, the BIECC has added an associate membership level, which includes leading solution providers for the beer industry. Working together, these stakeholders aim to provide a single voice for the beer industry on various electronic commerce initiatives and projects.

In carrying out its mission, the BIECC works to:

• Encourage the utilization of state-of-the-art applications.
• Enhance the value of the three-tier system.
• Educate the brewer and the distribution tiers on electronic data interchange (EDI).
• Represent the beer industry’s interests to selected electronic commerce committees.
• Monitor electronic commerce developments that impact the beer industry.

There are four areas in which the BIECC is concentrating to advance electronic commerce:

• Education: Inform suppliers, distributors and retailers about relevant electronic commerce related issues. Each year the coalition presents an education seminar at NBWA’s Annual Convention. In non-trade show convention years, the BIECC also sponsors the very popular Beer & Bytes luncheon, which allows convention attendees to enjoy lunch and at the same time learn about a new technology in the industry from leading technology providers.
• Standards: Work to enhance existing industry standards and promote standard business transactions. The coalition has developed industry standards and positions on electronic commerce and other related issues affecting distributors and their trading partners. These have been communicated to standards setting bodies, beer industry professionals and other industry groups. In 2009, the BIECC published an updated version of the Route Accounting System (RAS) Checklist, first produced in 2001.
• Regulatory: Ensure that state and federal laws are upheld and that the playing field is level.
• Research: Investigate and review emerging technology for use in the beverage industry. Coalition members address a variety of challenges facing beer distributors. They investigate tools utilized to maximize productivity and automate the beer industry’s sales force, including hand-held devices such as pagers, cellular phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), portable data collection terminals, truck/car based personal computers (PCs) and global positioning systems (GPS). In recent years the BIECC has also worked with various groups to pilot and investigate emerging technologies like Global Data Synchronization (GDS) and the emergence of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID in the beer industry.