GEODIS, a leading player in beverage distribution

The beverage market demands flawless and meticulously planned logistics. This proven area of GEODIS expertise is now more proactive than ever before.

In the middle of a summer heatwave, it is fairly easy to buy a well-chilled bottle of water or can of soda. Behind the scenes, however, ensuring that these products are available on time at countless sales outlets all over Europe is a highly complex task and a major logistical feat.

This is the challenge GEODIS takes up each year on behalf of a dozen prominent key accounts in the field of water, beer, milk and soda. “GEODIS assigns specific, highly experienced and proactive teams to these customers,” explains Christophe Piaton, Key Accounts Sales Force Director for the GEODIS Road Transport Line of Business. This activity is generally seasonal, lasting between March and August with transport operations starting up in May.

Anticipating the market

“Our schedule used to be relatively stable,” says Piaton. “But in the last few years, some customers have started building up their stocks as early as February and we have had to respond to unforeseen spikes in activity right up to the end of October. This is caused by a number of factors, including unreliable weather, strikes, promotional campaigns spread over the year, and compost transport taking up resources that would otherwise be allocated to beverages.”

GEODIS plans ahead for these fluctuations by using dedicated resources or calling on a variety of solutions, such as allocated block trains or multimodal transport.

“Above all, we have been able to process the data from Zenith – our in-house transport management system (TMS) – over the last three years,” says Piaton. “This allows us to generate prevision models that help us anticipate changes in transport demand for each of our customers on a monthly and weekly basis.”

GEODIS uses tool digitization – and the expertise of its international teams – to respond to the market need for agility through a diversified its range of services across Europe.