America’s Largest Alcohol Distributor to Cut Hundreds of Jobs as It Adopts AI

(Photo: Southern Glazer’s)

Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits is preparing to lay off 1% of its workforce as it shifts to a hybrid sales approach utilizing AI. The alcohol distributor employs around 24,000 people across North America, according to Forbes, signaling that the company may soon lay off some 240 workers.

In a news release published earlier this week, SGWS said that it is implementing a hybrid approach that will combine field sales, inside sales and digital commerce under the same roof. The consolidation will create a newly designed “Customer Solutions Team” to better serve an additional one percent of its clientele.

The wording of this is all somewhat vague (feel free to read it for yourselves), but it seems that the company is focusing on increased backend capabilities for its highest-paying buyers. SGWS’s statement mentions data and insights, consultative selling and digital commerce tools, as well as repeat mentions of serving “certain independent customers.”

“The marketplace is clearly signaling us to think differently about how we operate and best serve a portion of independent customers,” Southern Glazer’s CEO Wayne E. Chaplin added.

“We are redirecting our resources where the business is moving and towards areas of growth, all while listening to our customers and individual markets to satisfy their needs and using AI to help us adapt to a changing market. Ultimately, this new hybrid approach will create a more responsive and effective customer support model, while improving the earning opportunity and retention for our talented commercial sales organization. ”

Southern Glazer’s has been the single largest alcohol distributor in America since 1992, currently operating in 47 US markets, Canada, the Caribbean and Central and South America. The company distributes brands from heavy hitters like Pernod Ricard, Sazerac, Brown-Forman and Beam Suntory, generating an annual revenue of nearly $26 billion.

Prolific as it may be, SGWS has not been without its woes. In February, the company announced that it was laying off a different 1% of its workforce as it aligned with a “2030 strategy” to improve long-term efficiency. Months earlier, reports circulated that the distributor had laid off 40% of its On-Premise Management in Southern California.