NAB NABCA
ROUNDTABLE T
INDUSTRY STEERING COMMITTEE
Members of the NABCA Industry Steering Committee offer insights into the important issues facing the beverage alcohol industry, its suppliers and the control states.
hroughout the year, the National Alcohol Beverage Control Association (NABCA) Board of Directors meets with the Industry Steering Committee, a group of industry leaders from distilled spirits companies, to address new and ongoing issues facing the beverage alcohol industry and the control states. StateWays once again asked these committee members to participate in a virtual roundtable where they were invited to discuss accomplishments of the past year and challenges facing their industry and the control states in the coming year. The theme of the upcoming Annual NABCA Conference, in Marco Island, FL, is "Acknowledging the Benefits of Control," and we suggested that Industry Steering Committee members participating could use that as a jumping off point for their comments. Naturally, we also suggested that they can address a variety of issues affecting the industry and the control states: for example, privatization, social responsibility, modernization, best practices, etc. We thank those supplier representatives who took the time out of their busy schedules to respond. These include: Steve Bjeldanes, VP, General Sales Manager, U.S. Control / National Accounts / Canada, Beam Inc.; Marc Satterthwaite, Vice President, Control States and Canada, Brown-Forman; Greg Armstrong, President, Spirits Control, Diageo NA; By John Trainer, General Manager, Control State Division, Pernod Ricard USA; H. Derek Hopkins, Senior Vice President, Sales, Bacardi USA; John W Byrne, Director of Control States & Public Affairs, Rémy Cointreau USA, Inc.; Ted Roman, Senior Vice President, Sales, William Grant & Sons; Rick Przedieda, Sales Manager, Control States and Canada, Luxco; and Steve Feller, Vice President of North American Sales, Heaven Hill Distilleries, Inc.
BJELDANES Beam Inc.
STEVE VP,
General Sales Manager US Control /
National Accounts / Canada
Chairman, NABCA Industry Steering Committee
44
e at Beam Inc. have long been proponents of the Control States system and route to market. In fact, Beam has had one of the longest standing, dedicated Control States sales, field marketing and management structures in the industry.
W
Some would label the Control States environment as restrictive or prohibitive when compared to the so- called Open market states. On the contrary, we at Beam view the Control States as an area that provides stability and predictably in pricing and promotional costs as well as other areas. As we know, within the three-tier system, there are several stakeholders along the way to the consumer who impact a brand's presence in a marketplace. Things like
StateWays s www.stateways.com s May/June 2012
