Founded in 1856, the AGORA Group is a fully independent 100% family-owned group of companies based in Spain that offers a range of beers, including the popular Ámbar and Moritz brands, as well as an array of sodas. They are both the longest-standing brewing group in the country and the smallest.
The company is committed to local taste and respect for tradition and make the products they believe in. Today, the fifth and sixth generations of the family continue to run the business with a portfolio of authentic brands of outstanding quality. Over the years, the group’s companies have also diversified, establishing a structure intended to support the heart of the business: beer.
While AGORA Group’s iconic bottles have in the past filled up the shelves of stores in Aragon, Rioja, Comunidad Valenciana, Catalonia, Castilla y León, Castilla La Mancha and Madrid, you may wonder: what if I wanted to enjoy one of their drinks when I’m elsewhere in Spain? AGORA Group has news for you: they have ambitious plans to come to you, wherever you may be.
Guillermo Po Gallardo, IT Project Manager at the company, explained: “Traditionally, our target markets have always been the north of Spain and the region around Barcelona. However, we have recently started planning a country-wide expansion to bring our products to people all around the country.”
Growing a business, while exhilarating, is not without its challenges.
The company had to make sure their most popular products were always available without sacrificing quality or tradition. They needed to plan their marketing initiatives in real time to attract new consumers. They needed to figure out how to manage stock in new locations and during peak seasons, such as the summer months and city festivals. The running of the bulls in Pamplona is just one example of many annual events that bring millions of thirsty spectators to the towns of Spain.
As they were diversifying and expanding, AGORA Group needed to help their teams realize every opportunity to engage consumers.
AGORA Group’s business operations had been underpinned by slow, aging hardware solutions – something the company knew would be a hindrance to expansion.
“To support our growth, we needed maximum speed, reliability and performance,” said Po Gallardo. “It sounded like a lot to ask for… until we learned about hyperconverged technology.”
The Lenovo Services team helped the AGORA Group bring their compute, networking and storage components into one simple Lenovo-Nutanix solution. Today, the company runs its critical SAP enterprise application environment on the Lenovo hyperconverged solution, supported by SAP HANA. This allows them to obtain and share real-time stock and sales information.
Lenovo’s solutions have been able to support the Group’s “progressive growth,” said Po Gallardo. “The new infrastructure enables us to obtain real-time information reliably and share it company-wide at the touch of a button,” he added. “This is incredibly helpful when managing stock levels, planning marketing campaigns, or preparing to deal with a sudden spike in demand because a heatwave is coming or a city festival is about to start.”
Their teams can now immediately see exactly when sales peak during the day and which products prove the most popular. By cross-checking this information, their sales and marketing teams can constantly refine their predictions and strategies.
Po Gallardo concluded: “Our collaboration with Lenovo and Nutanix has been excellent, and we are already working on several new projects with them. We truly believe that the Lenovo-Nutanix solution will help us to grow our business successfully and bring our quality products to all corners of Spain.”