Today our Russian colleagues have been invited to visit one presentation

JOANNA BROOKES

Good morning. Some of you may know me better than others, so let me just briefly introduce myself. My names Joanna Brookes and I'm in charge of Public Relations for Westwood Brewery. As you may know, this is a relatively new post, and its creation reflects the Board's concern over our position and image in the market. So, one of my first tasks is to define a clear company identity for Westwood, one that will carry us forward into the next century, For this reason, I have asked you all to join me here today to hear your views on a way forward for Westwood. Some of you have been with the brewery for many years, others not at all, so before we start I'd like to outline three main aspects which I see contributing significantly to the brewery's identity.

The firstaspect is the products, the second our markets and distribution in particular, and the third key element is our people. So, let's just spend the next few minutes reviewing these three elements... and please, interrupt me if you have any questions or points you'd like to raise as we go along. So, the products. Arguably, the most important element in our corporate identity is our product range. The first thing to be said about these products is that they're very diverse. Well, let's take our premium export lager, Hohenbrau. Now this product has always been positioned at the topend of the market. It has a high price and it's only available through selected retail outlets. Altogether, it's quite exclusive.

On the other hand, our Rutter's bitter has an entirely different personality. It's brewed in a traditional way. We put a lot of malt into it which gives it a rich golden colour. As far as I know, it's always been sold at a medium price and is available through most supermarkets.

So, as you can see, these are two very different products. One an up-man German-type Pilsener, the other a very English bitter. One point for discussion then, is whether we should maintain such different products in our range.

Let's move on to marketing, and I only want to raise one issue. It's connected with the products really. It seems to me its going to be very difficult strengthening Westwood's identity in the market when some of our beers are only available through specialist outlets.

QUESTIONER 1 (Mr. Evdokimov)

Excuse me, if you don't mind me saying, I think you'll find there are very good reasons for restricting the channels for some of our beers.

JOANNA

That's interesting you should say so and I look forward to hearing more about that in our discussions. Perhaps we can leave it that there are probably very good product reasons why, but that these may conflict with the promotion of the total company image. Would you agree?

QUESTIONER 1 (Mr. Smirnov)

That's certainly true.

JOANNA

So, that covers two of the elements which I think we need to discuss. The third element is the people... and primarily here, I mean the brewery workers and the management. One of the things that shocked me when I first joined Westwood was this ... organization chart. It's like something from the last century. Do you realize there are ten layers between the shop-floor workers and the Managing Director? In my view, this makes the company slow and unresponsive. I know there are many good things about Westwood, but our image is much the same as it was in, say, the times of Queen Victoria - a very traditional, paternalistic employer.

Well, the very least we need to do is discuss whether this image is appropriate for the late 20th century, let alone the 21 st. So, before we move on to discuss these matters, let me just summarize the main issues as I see them. Firstly, on the product side, there's the question of diversity of product range. Secondly, on the marketing front, we need to review our distribution network. And thirdly, on the personnel side, we need to look at the sort of employer we are and want to become.

So, I suggest we look at things in that order: product, distribution, and people. Hopefully this will help us to agree on a clear way forward. Right, before we start, are there any questions you'd like to ask?

Assessing a presentation

Lesson 3.

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