Africa Partner Program

We are very proud to work with an array of talented and driven drinks importers in Africa, all using our Beverageintelligence Partner program. Our first two Partner markets were Nigeria and Rwanda, and we have expanded these to 8 other countries on the continent.

Here is a broad overview of the services we offer our Partners. We are always interested to engage with drinks businesses that want to innovate and go the extra mile for customers. If you want to become a partner, please contact us here.

Education

Education is at the heart of what we do as a company. Over the last 15 years we have trained over 25,000 front of house staff in Africa. From waiters, to bartenders and retailers, we are passionate about building skills in the drinks and hospitality industries. We have created an online university of drinks to support this, and make it available to our Partners. For more information on our education philosophy and offering click here.

Portfolio

Over 15 years, we have developed close relationships with an incredible array of beverage brands, from South Africa and abroad. This ensures the best possible pricing and protection in African markets that rely on both. We identify with brands that have unique stories to tell, often from family-owned vineyards, brewers and distilleries, all with a focus on quality. We also work with international wine and spirits producers to enhance the overall offering available to our clients and their guests. We have products at all price points to suit any offering and can source specific requests. Click here to meet some of our brand partners.

We undergo a detailed product-market fit analysis with our Partners to ensure that the best possible portfolio is matched to the needs of their customers. This ensures the highest return on portfolio, as well as the most interesting and competitive offering on the ground.

Consolidation and Logistics

Under the Influence has two consolidation warehouses in Cape Town, for both bonded and less than container load shipments. We have weekly dispatches into Southern Africa, and monthly shipments into East and West Africa, incorporating an air freight network for higher value "just in time" wines and spirits. We operate at scale, but also with a degree of flexibility that is required for the African market. Our Operations team not only consolidates orders from multiple brands and suppliers, but also prepares them for export, and undertakes the logistics to your door. This saves a lot of time and money. One order. One delivery. One invoice. We can also facilitate stock via our bonded warehouse in Nairobi.

Our logistics footprint in Africa.

Beverageintelligence Platform

The key to creating a drinks business with longevity and the ability to generate cash, is to optimise return on inventory, and maximise customer experience. We help our Partners create Africa's most successful drinks lists. Beverageintelligence is a platform that has been built and provided to our Partners for this exact purpose. Each one of our Partner's customers gets a login to Beverageintelligence where they can manage their drinks list, place and forecast orders, and also train their team from beginner to junior sommelier level.

In addition Beverageintelligence offers our Partners a unique set of tools to manage their sales team, customer success processes, inventory sales, forecasting and margin. We have built the Platform from scratch over the last 10 years, 100% tailored to the African drinks business and the unique challenges and opportunities therein. We invite you to explore Beverageintelligence and sign up for a demo here.

Preview of our Beverageintelligence Wine101 course

Sales leads

In addition to our Beverageintelligence platform and Education tools, we have developed relationships with retail and hospitality groups across the continent. We also have a Partner support team that travels into markets to assist with wine tasting experiences and sales activities. This network and in-market activity leads to sales growth for our Partners with blue-chip customers. We then plug in our customer success tools, to ensure customers are retained and can be serviced to the highest standards.

Some of our customers on the continent, who we network into Partner channels.