JULY 2003
one or two as far as strategic planning is concerned."
Andrea Sato was Director National Accounts Off-Premise until a
short while ago and now heads up the Knowledge Management
department as Vice President. She started working for Heineken USA
in 1995 and one of her first activities involved setting up a national
accounts group for the chains of restaurants and hotels that operate
nation-wide. Shortly after that she concentrated on exploiting the
potential for Heineken in the off premise segment. "That's when
we really started to grow," recalls Sato. Meanwhile Heineken USA
has split up its national off premise group into separate channel
managers who, in their respective channels, know everything
about shopping behaviour, can effectively use shelf management
tools and can interpret Nielsen market research findings to identify
new market trends. But, according to Sato, even more is needed
if you want to get the most out of the market. "We have developed
tools that allow everyone to see what the exact figures are. But
we've found that the data are not yet being used to the best
possible effect. People don't know how to use the tools. We have
to make the relevance of those data clear and translate them into
terms of what the users need. In the import segment we are
leading-edge in our knowledge of the market. The question is:
how do we convey that knowledge to the managers in the field?"
The answer is to be found in the Knowledge Management depart
ment, which combines raw data with IT applications. Andrea is not
