"I'm hearing a lot about weak weather comps, current economic conditions, unemployment, credit-card fees, Hispanic flight," he told CSP Daily News in an exclusive interview. "All of these are factors that are outside of our [image-nocss] circle of influence, but we try to stay focused on the opportunities that we can impact, such as the channel shifting, trade downs and decreases in traffic, which typically lead us into discussions about effective merchandising, bundling, brand and package innovations and program development.
Falcone started in the beer industry in Pennsylvania on the wholesaler side of the business. In his 17 years with Anheuser-Busch, he's worked in various positions and in various parts of the country, including as senior national retail sales key account manager on the 7-Eleven team and director of A-B's team Pantry in the Southeast, providing c-store experience that he feels is critical to his current position.
"7-Eleven is the largest c-store by volume for us, and The Pantry is the third largest," he said. "So it gave me the opportunity to work for two out of three of the largest c-stores in the country, which gave me a lot of experience about the c-store business."
Most recently working as vice president, national retail sales, drug, club, mass merchandise, dollar and emerging markets, Falcone welcomes the return to the c-store side of the business. And if his experience in these "emerging" beer markets gives him some perspective to help c-store retailers succeed, so be it.
CSP: What have you been doing since taking over as vice president, national retail sales, convenience and military?
Falcone: I have been traveling a lot. Over the past several months, I've been focusing on getting out and meeting with retailers and [visiting] stores. I really believe that good decisions are not made from the swivel chair. We place a high value on evaluating our strategies and being able to see how our programs are resonating.
I'm really fortunate to have a very talented and focused team on the c-store business. We're supported by a new trade channel marketing group, which is the Center of Excellence, that is solely focused on the c-store channel. This group helps us to identify gaps and build programs to close those gaps. They take a very analytical and forward-looking approach to the business.
So through all the traveling and interacting with the retailers and getting out at store level and understanding what's important to our retailers, by riding stores and seeing what opportunities are out there firsthand, I then am able to work with this Center of Excellence, which is our analytics group and our category-management group, and really develop solutions to help close the gaps that were identified.
CSP: How do you help a retailer achieve his goals?
Falcone: We've been working to find ways to expand on purchasing trends to maximize every consumer's visit to a c-store. One area where we see a large opportunity for growth and profit is the food sector. With being the second high-selling product in c-stores, it makes sense to pair beer with food in the eyes of the consumer. So for example, we can evaluate correlation data to bundle products that interact well with each other and them develop programs.... We can take a look at ways to develop bundles by daypart that make sense.
If we take a hard look at that, the c-store retailer can then deliver competitive retail through disciplined purchasing practices.... With the competitive pressure that has increased significantly on the c-store channel, it's imperative that we place a high emphasis on offering a high level of service, being clean, friendly, fast, well-lit. These all contribute to repeat purchases and repeat visits, which is really going to help us affect that traffic.
But for c-stores, it's really a simple formula: We've got to be cold and in-stock. That's really the name of the game. The solution lies in effective category management, data-driven beer sets that help reduce out-of-stocks, control labor costs and increase consumer satisfaction.
CSP: What are your goals for the c-store channel and for A-B moving forward?
Falcone: Our goal is to proactively identify opportunities to deliver profitable volume growth for the beer category. We're looking for opportunities to increase traffic and trade consumers up, and increase market-basket size by integrating beer into c-stores' other categories, particularly the food sector.
CSP: What do you say to a retailer who has seen his A-B representative change twice in the past year or so?
Falcone: Through the changes that we've made [since being purchased by InBev in 2008], we've had tremendous consistency with our district managers and our key account managers. We took an opportunity to make sure we have the right people on the right accounts. I think that's important. We might have had some changes, but I think those changes have strengthened us.
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