AboutEric Hofer Expertise Over 27 years experience, with 17 in international FMCG in back office operations and in field sales and data collection, including design, development and deployment of Handhelds, Marketing Equipment (Service, Tracking and Return on Investment), reporting and Vending management. Have participated on the launch of operations in new markets, and re-engineered the back office in several countries.
Experience Designed and led the development and deployment internal ERP system for Pepsi used in On-Premise/Vending in 13 markets.
Designed 2 handheld systems, the latest is now deployed in 4 markets internationally.
Re-engineered the back office functions (settlements, despatch, invoicing, credit control, etc) for over 20 snack, confectionary and beverage operators.
Developing software: Progress, VB, Access, C, Sybase, SA
Organizations Innovative-Selling Solutions
Publications BudapestSun
Education/Credentials State University of New York - BA Economics
NYU - Courant - Graduate work - Computing
Past/Present clients PepsiAmericas
PepsiCola International
PepsiCola Company
British Steel
British Telecom
Britvic (Pepsi's bottler in the UK)
AT&T
BellSouth
Mars Overseas Bottling
Pepsi France
Matutano (Frito-Lay Spain)
Frito-Lay
Pepsi Foods International
Chase Manhattan Bank
Kidder Peabody
National Power
SmithKline Beecham
Mars Overseas Bottling (Pepsi Azerbaijan)
A&P Bottling (Pepsi Serbia & Montenegro)
Iberia Bottlers (Pepsi Georgia)
Question hello mr hofer my name is antoine and i have a drink in mind to benifit people but i can i get it off the ground i got my own recipe and im in shreveport louisiana i really need your help thank you
Answer Hello Antoine,
No need to be formal, Eric will do.
I'd like some more information please.
- What is the drink?
- How is it "of benefit?"
- Is it complicated to manufacture?
- What is the cost of manufacture?
- At what price would you it expect to retail?
- Is it something that would sell "on-premise" (for example in a bar); or is it "take home?"
- Are the ingredients easy or difficult to obtain?
- Is there already an established competitor with something similar?
- What niche does it fit?
- Is it seasonal (eg. hot cocoa, or Pimm's Cocktail)?
- Is it relative to a type of alcohol - eg. like a screwdriver is related to vodka)?
- Who is the target audience/customer base?
- How would you take it to market if you had unlimited funding?
- Is it something that would garner the interest of people outside of your area? Or is it a local taste?
- Who have you approached so far? What issues did you face?
And for me and others who may some day look at our exchange (and its only out of curiosity so it's not mandatory):
- What is your background?
- What is your native language?
- Is it a "style" to ignore capital letters and punctuation?
